


brooklyn by the sea

by justanotherblond



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Child Death, Child Murder, Father-Son Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hydra Bucky Barnes, Hydra Peter Parker, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Non-Chronological, Parent Bucky Barnes, Parent Death, Parent Natasha Romanov, Suicidal Thoughts, Tragedy, done by hydra not natasha or bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28639470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherblond/pseuds/justanotherblond
Summary: This was the fourth child born in captivity, and the soldier named him Peter.***Thirteen years after the accident that killed three of Bucky’s children, he gets a call that Natasha, the mother of his children, was killed during a mission. He is forced to return to Brooklyn, a place he swore to leave in the past, to care for his only surviving son, Peter, who he hasn’t seen since the accident.But as old memories are dug up, truths are revealed, and the sea becomes stormy, Bucky fears that he isn’t fit to look after his son.***(Based on the movie Manchester by the Sea.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Peter Parker, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, past - Relationship
Comments: 33
Kudos: 109





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> in honor of the two year anniversary of we leave through the fire, I decided to write an AU piece for timshel based on one of my favorite movies Manchester by the Sea (unfortunetly, the movie stars the disgusting predator Casey Affleck, but you can just pirate the movie like i did). There are some fun/ish easter eggs for we leave through the fire that I've put through out this fic 
> 
> Major warning for child murder, depression, PTSD, and typical Hydra abuse.

_Present._

_Bucharest, Romania._

The apartment was less than ideal, but its shelter was necessary. 

Bucky didn’t despise it, and Romania was far from what happened. 

It wasn’t his first shelter since the accident. There was one in Albania, El Salvador, Sweden, Taiwan, Nigeria, and Argentina. Each time he feared he’d be found, he’d move again. 

This apartment reeked of decay. There was rotten food in the kitchen and dead rats in the walls. The sour smell of decomposing flesh wafted around the apartment like a thick smoke cloud. 

There was a leak in the ceiling that ruined the linoleum tile in the kitchen. The power seldom worked, same with the heat. Dust caked every surface and mold grew around the edges of the floor. There was a squishy, wet noise that came every time he stepped on the carpet. 

The windows were boarded and covered in newspaper. The door was secured with ten locks. 

Bucky kept one gun under his pillow, two behind the fridge, one bomb set in the bathtub, and a tripwire by the door. 

There was a mattress on the floor, a television that didn’t work in the same room, and a folding table with no chairs in the kitchen. The fridge had no food, as only necessary rations were kept in the cabinets. Bucky rarely ate anyway. He welcomed the ache in his stomach like an old friend. 

Everything in the apartment was dreary and uncared for, except for the four framed pictures set on the table. 

Bucky dusted them daily. When they needed to be straightened out, he handled them with immense care, like cradling a kitten with a wounded paw. On rare occasions when his heart ached so bad it felt like it would tear apart, he would give each picture a small kiss. 

Without these pictures, Bucky would have forgotten their faces but remembered their screams. His brain soaked in tragedies like a sponge, but let the good wash away like grime.

His brain was mush, barely better than scrambled eggs. It constantly flashed around memories like a static television. 

He blamed the chair, originally, for his faulty memory, but realized it was the men behind the chair who were at fault. 

His time with Hydra felt clear, but in reality, it was decades whittled down to flashing moments. Rough concrete. Siberian winter. Blood caked in his hair. His blood. Goggles breaking. A bullet through a child’s head. 

His semi-amnesia seemed like a blessing now. A chance to leave the past behind him, if he could truly forget it all. 

Until he got the call. 

He had this phone for emergency uses only. He never used it, and only one person besides him knew the number. 

He refused to have a phone at first, broke the first six he was sent, but Steve insisted, almost as if he knew something bad would happen. 

And Bucky was a fool for not thinking the same. 

It was a Thursday. The phone rang at 3:46:07 in the morning. 

Bucky was not asleep. He grabbed the phone, squeezed his eyes closed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and answered. 

“S _teve_ ,” he hissed, “we’ve talked about this. You can’t call me whenever -” 

“ _Natasha’s dead_ ,” Steve cut in, voice cold and watery. 

Bucky’s eyes snapped open. His hand dropped down to the table and he pressed the phone closer to his ear as if he heard that wrong. 

“What?” he asked lamely, mind spinning too fast to come up with anything more. 

“ _And she wanted you to look after Peter,”_ Steve continued. 

Then, the line went dead. 


	2. chapter one

_Bucky - the soldier_

***

Bucky reluctantly left for Brooklyn in the morning and he wondered, for the first time in years, what Peter’s face looked like. 

***

_Fifteen years ago._

This was the fourth baby born in captivity. 

He was swaddled in his mother’s ripped, thin shirt, leaving her torso bare and open to the cold. 

Thankfully, the baby was rested on the single cot left in the room, allowing him some form of comfort in the barren and rigid cell. 

His skin was purple and covered with small blood clots, giving him a taste of the life he was destined to carry out. A life of bloodshed and obedience. 

His father, the soldier, still had the blood of a politician caked in his hair. His mother had her own dried on her cheek. 

The baby’s brow was furrowed, already so serious, as he wailed for his mother who would not cradle him. 

“I don’t care what we name him,” the widow stated, her face and voice void of all emotion as she stared down at the fussing baby. 

“I don’t either,” the soldier lied. 

He lifted a single finger and held it next to the baby’s head. 

The baby quieted. He then gurgled and showed his gums, an innocent sort of smile, and lifted one of his pudgy hands to grip the soldier’s finger as tightly as he could. 

“I enjoy the sound of Pietro’s name,” the widow hummed noncommittally, bringing up their third-born child for the first time in months. 

They were rarely permitted to see the children they were forced to bring into the world. They resided in the cell beside them, only a wall of rough cement separating them yet it might’ve been an ocean for how far away they felt. 

Sometimes, when the soldier was very careful, he spoke Morse code with them through the wall. 

The widow and the soldier could occasionally hear the children’s cell door open, and both would listen to their tiny feet as they were guided to the training room where they practiced their unique abilities. 

Yelena, the oldest and only five, had unbelievable wit and could think her way out of any situation. Wanda, three, could move things with her mind. And Pietro, two, was so fast that if one blinked their eyes, they would open them to find the toddler miles away. 

The soldier’s thoughts were always filled with the faces of his children. They were the first thing he thought when going into the cryo-chamber. They were the last before he sat down in the chair. 

He worried about them. He wondered if they would ever hear the whistle of the wind. Feel rainfall drench their clothes. Watch the wings of a butterfly. Listen to their own laughter. Sit in the chair. Feel its burn. 

He remembered discussing escape once, after the birth of Yelena. But the widow grabbed his flesh arm, dug in with her nails until his skin broke, and hissed at him to never speak of freedom. 

“You should name him,” the widow suggested, but her tone showed that this was a command.

The soldier had named all of their children. The names came from fragments of grainy memories of past missions: characters in flashing movies, words on billboards, names spoken as he walked past civilians on the street. 

“How about Peter?” The soldier asked. 

“Fine,” the widow agreed quickly, so fast that the soldier wondered if she had even listened long enough to hear the name. 

Then, she walked forward stiffly and picked up Peter from his cot. She then walked to the door of their cell and knocked three times. 

A guard opened it swiftly. 

“Is it born?” the guard asked. 

The widow raised the baby up as an offering and said, “His name is Peter.” 

Then, just like the others, this baby was no longer theirs. 

The guard stole Peter from his mother’s arms, stepped back, and slammed the door in her face. 

***

_Present._

_Brooklyn, New York._

Not many knew Brooklyn for its beaches. Sure, there were the Coney Island enthusiasts and locals who wanted a free escape from the sticky summers, but no one quite remembered it as fondly as Bucky. 

For it was the beach that Bucky remembered first. 

When he started his recovery, Steve used to take him here, sit them on the sandy shoreline, and tell stories of their youth. 

They would sit there, hours blowing past like seconds, and turn in once the sun disappeared behind where the water was no more. 

They started taking the kids there not long after. They’d build sandcastles, dig for sand crabs, and splash in the shallowest part of the water. 

Bucky would hold the girls under their armpits and spin them around until their laughter rang so loud, it competed with the loud crash of the tide. Pietro would race past them, running with his bucket into the sea to gather more water for his castles. Steve would smile behind his sunglasses, holding a babbling and wiggling Peter. 

Remembering the good was why it was so hard to come back. His chest ached, hollow and sore, spreading out like a virus through his whole body until all he felt was pain. 

He blocked those memories; pushed away the girls’ sharp giggles and Pietro’s gleeful calls and Peter’s gargling coos. 

Bucky stared out at the windy, thrashing ocean. His hands were tucked into his sweatshirt pocket, hiding both flesh and metal. His hair flew around his face, covering it like a mask. He should have tied it back, but the temporary disguise was welcomed. 

No one should be here in autumn, especially as the brisk cold of winter was fast approaching. 

But Bucky didn’t feel cold. He tried so often to feel the bite of winter, just as he had in his youth, but since his days at Hydra, he just couldn’t feel it anymore. 

He focused back on the swelling tide. Watched it rock and crash against a decaying pier. 

He wondered, briefly, how hard the ocean would have to hit it before it all came crashing down? How much force would be needed for the entire structure to be eaten by the sea? 

Storm clouds grew overhead. The wind grew harder, faster. The tide grew stronger. 

Bucky darted his eyes to the left, then to the right, seeing if there was anyone around to watch him walk into the sea and let it eat him whole. 

There was no one in sight. 

He took a step forward. 

“Figured I’d find you here,” a voice from the past spoke from Bucky’s 11. 

Bucky stopped, huffing in annoyance. 

He didn’t turn toward the voice. Didn’t acknowledge his presence. 

Sam stepped forward, walking until he stood shoulder to shoulder with the former soldier. 

Sam breathed into his hands and rubbed them together for warmth before he turned to look at Bucky. 

“I know this is hard, being here after the accident,” Sam said as if it needed clarification. 

Bucky’s back tensed at the mention of it. 

The accident. The fatal mistake. Blood on the wall. Sirens blaring outside the window. Two-year-old Peter’s pale, tear-streaked face. 

Bucky tried so hard to forget it. 

“You don’t know that half of it,” Bucky snapped through clenched teeth, and Sam immediately dropped the subject. 

They were quickly brought into stiff silence. 

Sam turned back to the ocean, chewing the inside of his cheek as if to stop himself from sighing forlornly. 

Bucky shifted his weight and flicked the hair from his eyes. 

“How, um,” Bucky started, then cleared his throat. “How’s Peter?” 

His eyes stung at the mere mention of his name. His throat dried. His heart _glug thumped_ so hard against his chest, aching and sore, that Bucky wondered if it would burst like a squeezed grape. 

In his head, Peter was still that pale toddler, too horrified to cry. His eyes were wide and dull. His clothes stained. His sister’s blood in his hair.

Steve used to send him pictures of Peter, school pictures, pictures from sports he played, pictures from his marching band, whenever he managed to find Bucky’s address. He stopped eventually when Bucky kept sending them back. 

“Good! He’s good,” Sam assured, his tone brightening at the mention of the boy. 

Bucky finally tore his eyes away from the sea and came face to face with a beaming Sam. 

He had the prideful look of a father. 

Bucky wondered briefly if he ever looked like that. 

“Smart kid,” Sam continued, “real sweet, too. Once saw him ride the subway eight stops in the wrong direction just to make sure an old lady got home safe.” 

Bucky hummed, feigning disinterest, but it _hurt_ hearing someone else talk about his son that way when he couldn’t. 

“Where is he?” Bucky implored, suddenly curious as to where Peter had been taking shelter now that his mother was dead. 

Sam became oddly stiff, an unnatural posture for someone who was usually so easy-going. He brought his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat, then shifted his weight and said, “At the Avenger’s Tower.” 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. 

“He hasn’t been with Steve, has he?” 

“No!” Sam assured, a little too frantic. He took a deep, but quiet breath, and tried again. “Nooo. Steve can barely stand to _look_ at the kid, much less look after him.” 

Bucky worked his jaw for a second. 

“Then why is he at the tower?” 

Sam became quiet suddenly, and his face became apprehensive like he wasn’t sure how to phrase his next sentence. 

Bucky side-eyed him.

“What?” he asked, voice slipping between his teeth like a snarl. 

Sam chuckled humorlessly and raised his hands, giving up the blame before any was put on him, and said, “Look, man, this was Tony’s idea, alright? Nat’s, too. But Peter started training with the Avengers a few months ago.” 

Bucky’s brow furrowed. He puffed his chest and turned on his heels to fully face Sam. 

Natasha surely wouldn’t have allowed that much less _suggested_ it. She promised Bucky, long ago, that after everything, she would keep Peter _safe_. 

“Why?” he hissed, tongue snapping on the rough of his mouth like a serpent sought to strike. 

Sam laughed, real and hearty this time, completely ignorant to Bucky’s panicking rage. 

Sam clapped Bucky on the shoulder, as if they were old friends, and exclaimed, “Man, your kid can climb up _walls_.” 

  
  


***

_Fourteen years, four months, and 4 days earlier_

Bucky remembered their rescue in fragments. 

He remembered his door breaking. He remembered the smoke and the ripe smell of burning flesh. He remembered the widow breaking their cot over a SHIELD agent’s back. He remembered a man with a helmet and a gun asking him if he knew about the children _._

He remembered breaking down the children’s door, or maybe that was the widow. He was sure, though, that he was the one who ran in. 

He remembered Wanda’s eyes staring at him like she was awed or scared. He remembered Yelena’s bruises, Pietro’s smile, and Peter’s wails. 

An agent gave the children grey, coarse blankets. 

The soldier pushed him away, snarled at him not to touch them, not his kin, not his babies. 

The widow barked at him to calm himself before she methodically picked up the screaming baby, swaddled him in his sister’s blanket, and directed the children out the door. 

The soldier followed behind them, racing on the widow’s heels. 

The plane ride was hazy. As was the face of the doctor who looked them over, and the needles stuck into their arms, and the tower they were sheltered in. 

He was assigned a name; James Buchanan Barnes. He was told that the name belonged to him once, perhaps in another life. A happy, ignorant life. He did not remember who told him. 

But that night remains vivid in his brain. 

He never remembered the sleep, but the waking was clear. 

He woke with a start but didn’t flinch. His body laid stiff. He opened his eyes to see the widow sitting at the foot of his bed. 

At first, he feared something happened to the children. He quickly surveyed the room, making a quick note of anything that could be a camera, a bug, a bomb, or a guard. 

There was nothing but buzzing silence. 

Pietro slept silently on the soldier’s left side. Wanda and Yelena were huddled together on his right. Baby Peter rested on his chest. 

All of them silent. Even in sleep, they were careful to make no noise. 

The soldier looked back at the widow and tilted his head.

She stared at him blankly. Her red hair was vivid even in the dark, but her dull eyes barely shun. She was dressed for daytime, and a packed bag was strapped to her back. 

“Sleep, Natashenka,” he spoke, voice rough from his slumber. 

“I needed to be cold to them,” the widow said quickly and with determination like she had to reassure both the soldier and herself. 

The soldier sat up in one fluid motion, coming to see her face to face. He still cradled Peter, holding his body like an egg bound to fall.

The widow looked away, watching the far wall instead of the soldier or their child. 

“But I always loved them,” she continued, forcing her voice to keep steady. “I need you to know that.” 

“I knew that,” he responded quickly, but this lie he could not hide well. 

The widow nodded anyway, pretending she had not noticed it. 

She escaped through the window not long after, slipping through like a phantom’s shadow. 

And the soldier never saw her again. 

***

_Present_

They stopped at the hospital before going to the tower. Sam claimed it was on the way, and some of Natasha’s personal items, her clothes, her cell phone, her wallet, needed to be picked up. 

The hospital was sterile and dull. Everyone gave Sam and Bucky false comfort and worthless condolences. 

Sam teared up at some point, and a nurse with a sad smile gave him a box of tissues. 

“Can’t believe she went out like this, is all,” Sam explained, voice choked up, before wiping vigorously at his eyes. 

They were then asked if they wanted to see her. 

Sam declined, stating that the idea of seeing her corpse coming out of some drawer in a hospital freezer gave him the creeps. 

Bucky, without really thinking about it, said yes. 

A doctor accompanied him, leading them down an elevator, through a hall, and into the freezer. 

The doctor walked up to the wall of drawers, quickly scanned for Natasha’s name, and opened the right drawer. He unzipped her body bag and took a step back, gesturing for Bucky to go closer if he wanted.

Bucky crept up slowly, like approaching a bomb, and looked down. 

It was the first time he had seen her in nearly fifteen years, and yet she looked the same. The only difference was her skin, now drained of life, was so pale it was nearly translucent. Her hair was cut off and bleached. Her lips and skin were dry only because she was dead. She had no wrinkles, no sign of aging in any way. 

But Bucky assumed that he hadn’t aged much either. A side-effect of the serum. 

Her face was serious, even in death. Her lips almost pursed. Her brow nearly furrowed. 

_Oh, Natashenska,_ he thought to himself, _what did they do to us?_

He brought up his right hand and smoothed her hair back. Then, without thinking, he bent down and pressed his lips to her forehead. 

Just as his lips touched her cold, marbled flesh, his stomach lurched and his skin felt clammy. He jolted back and cupped his right hand over his mouth. 

“Are you okay?” the doctor asked, stepping forward and reaching to put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. 

Bucky lifted his hand sharply. 

The doctor froze just shy of touching him. 

“Yeah,” Bucky swallowed, slowly dropping his hand from his mouth. “I’m fine.”

He had only realized that this was the only time he had ever kissed her. 

**

Bucky threw up in the hospital bathroom while Sam blew his nose by the sink. 

“You sure you’re ready to see him today?” Sam asked, voice thick with mucus. He tossed his tissue in the trash and started to wash his hands. “I could get you a hotel, have Stark watch him for a few more days if you need some more time.” 

Bucky spat into the toilet and wiped his mouth roughly. 

“ _Yes,_ ” he groaned. “I told you, Sam. If I don’t see him tonight, I know I’ll be on a plane back to Romania in the morning.” 

There was a long pause. The buzzing sound of fluorescent lights filled the air. 

“You were in Romania?” Sam asked. 

Bucky rolled his eyes and grabbed a wad of toilet paper to wipe the puke from his chin. 

Guess that meant it was time to move again. 

He grunted while he stood up, using the stall wall for leverage. He then used his foot to hit the handle and flush the toilet. 

He burst out of the stall and headed straight toward the sink. 

Sam stepped aside to give him more space. 

Bucky started washing his hands, roughly pushing the soap dispenser and then scrubbing his skin. He rinsed, shook his hands dry, and looked at his reflection. 

His hair was disgustingly greasy, to the point where it looked like he poured a jar of olive oil all over his scalp. His beard was overgrown. There was dirt speckled all over his face. He probably stunk like hot sick and ripe garbage. 

He didn’t remember the last time he took a shower and wished now that he had access to one. And clean clothes. And a haircut. 

He briefly debated asking Sam for some of these things but determined that the hassle wasn’t worth the burden of asking. 

He used his still-damp hands to push back his hair, so maybe it would look more gelled and less grimy. 

He took one last deep breath and slapped the tiled counter. 

Sam flinched but tried to cover it. 

“Alright,” Bucky grinned, a feral and yellow looking thing, before turning toward the door, “let’s get this over with.” 

**

It was pouring by the time they made it to the tower. 

“You remember much of this place?” Sam asked when they finally stepped foot inside. He shook out his umbrella while Bucky shook out his hair. 

“Sure,” Bucky answered as he straightened up and let his eyes wander around the gaudy building. 

He remembered burning Wanda’s eggs in the communal kitchen and almost killing Steve in the gym. 

“Sam!” a woman’s voice called out, causing the two men to turn. 

Pepper Potts strutted toward them, her high heels click-clacking on the expensive tiled floors. A clipboard was tucked between her arms and her hair was pulled in a slicked-back ponytail. 

“Pepper!” Sam called back, all smiles as he opened his arms. 

She graciously stepped into the hug, closing her eyes and rubbing her hand up and down his back, almost methodically. She pulled back after five seconds exactly, but held onto one of his shoulders as she asked earnestly, “How are you holding up?” 

Sam’s smile shrunk, and all that was left was a sad, pathetic looking thing. One that people have when _they_ were trying to be sympathetic. 

“Doing better now that I’ve had some time,” Sam answered, and for what it was worth, he was telling the truth. 

Pepper nodded sympathetically before she sharply turned her head to Bucky. All her calculated kindness evaporated in a second as a quick flash of something like fear or detest went through her eyes. 

She gave a stiff and awkward smile as she finally greeted robotically, “Bucky. How are you.” 

Bucky didn’t bother faking formalities as he tucked himself away further, bunching his hands into his soaked sweatshirt pocket and letting his hair fall in front of his face. 

“Fine,” he grunted. “Where is he?”

Pepper let her false smile drop as she let go of Sam to say, “Basement. With Tony.” 

Bucky nodded and turned on his heels to head to the elevator, almost like an invisible string from the past was pulling him there. 

Sam waved Pepper an awkward goodbye as he quickly rushed after Bucky. 

Just as they were departing, Bucky heard Pepper hiss into her earpiece, “ _I told you not to let him inside the building._ ”

**

The last time Bucky had been in this lab, there were wires attached to his forehead and restraints on his arms. He was forced to watch flashes of images from his past on the screen. He bit through his lip so he wouldn’t cry. 

When the elevator door opened, Bucky almost expected the little boy with pudgy, freckled cheeks and curly hair that his father refused to cut, to be waiting there. 

Instead, they were met with a giant, see-through wall. 

It was sound-proof, from the looks of it. 

Tony Stark, who had aged notably since Bucky had last seen him, messed with some formula at a worktable. Beside him stood a lanky teenage boy. 

Bucky’s heart hammered so hard against his chest he wondered if the phantom pain in his robotic left arm was actually nonexistent. 

Years ago, a few after the accident, he would stay up wondering what his son’s voice sounded like, what his face looked like. Which parent did he grow more into? Maybe he’d have Bucky’s strength, or Natasha’s grace, or Bucky’s nose, or Natasha’s ears. 

Staring at the boy, his boy, in the flesh, he was quick to see that Peter had no strong resemblance to either of his parents. It was strange, so unlike his other siblings. Yelena had Bucky’s nose. Wanda had Natasha’s hair and eyes. Pietro had Bucky’s long limbs. 

Peter looked nothing like them. His eyes were brown, wide, and doe-like. His hair was chocolate brown and curly. He had freckles, a short stature, and a thin build. 

Bucky pondered briefly whether the boy was truly his. 

“We could go inside,” Sam suggested after watching Bucky silently watch Peter for more than five minutes. 

Bucky tensed, body locking like it would in the chair. 

Seeing his son’s face for the first time in thirteen years, having the chance to hear his voice, suddenly became too much. 

His guilt was thick and oozing like a festering wound. Though no one asked, Bucky wanted to say that he didn’t mean for any of this to happen. The accident, abandoning his son, running away, sobbing on the phone with Natasha, begging for her to raise Peter, throwing away Steve’s letters, ignoring his calls. 

Would the boy know what happened? Would he be afraid? Would he remember Bucky for his eyes, or maybe his voice? Would he remember him at all? 

Bucky couldn’t answer these questions, but he didn’t need to because just then Peter looked up. 

He froze, and the boy did, too. 

Seeing his face straight on gave Bucky the chance to observe him better. He could see that the doe-eyes were red-rimmed and surrounded by dark circles. His skin was pale and dry. His cheeks were sunken in and his eyes were hollow.

Perhaps this was his son after all. 

Peter paled like a spooked deer and turned to Stark to say something that Bucky couldn’t hear through the sound-proofed glass. 

Stark glanced at Bucky, his face unreadable, before he nodded to Peter and looked back down at his work. 

Peter pushed his work aside, wiped his hands on his jeans, and stumbled forward like he was limping on two feet. He straightened out and hurried to the door. 

He pushed through the door almost frantically. He must have seen something off-putting on Bucky’s face because he immediately paused, straightened up, and visibly took a breath. 

He clung onto the door like a shield, glancing at Sam and then at Bucky. 

“Are you…” he trailed off, glancing once more at Sam. 

His safety nets, Bucky quickly noted, are Sam and Stark. 

Sam nodded, encouraging Peter to continue. 

Peter looked back to Bucky and pushed away from the door. 

“Are you Bucky?” 

Bucky darted his eyes to Sam. 

Sam gives him a look, like a father pushing their child to introduce themselves. 

Bucky glanced back at Peter and nodded once, so stiffly it creaked his neck. 

Peter said nothing more. 

Before Bucky could register what happened, Peter rushed forward and wrapped him in a hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is going to be from Peter's point of view. I am hoping to be able to update in about two weeks! 
> 
> -Emily 
> 
> I made a rebloggable post [here](https://justanotherblonde-writer.tumblr.com/post/639791396977508352/brooklyn-by-the-sea-by-justanotherblond-series)


	3. chapter two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am progressively getting more annoyed that my new laptop won’t let me type an em dash, so please excuse the minor grammar mistake. Also, this chapter is very long! I hope that's okay lol

_Peter - the sole survivor_

***

This dream was always the same. 

***

_Peter and the girl hid in the coat closet, a fatal game of hide and seek._

_They were the last survivors. The other two hid in a kitchen cabinet but were found. Two screams and two gunshots were heard moments ago._

_“It’s okay,” the little girl whispered, English words clouded with her thick Russian accent._

_Her blonde hair shielded her face, but Peter could see the fear in her colorless eyes._

_He wondered if the hair was actually there, or if his mind simply wouldn’t allow him to see her face. He wanted to reach up, brush her hair aside, and look at her, really see her for the first time in years._

_He didn’t remember what it looked like, but he missed her smile._

_He was scared, and he didn’t know why, but he could feel the race of his heart, the ice pouring through his veins, the shake of his limbs that he couldn’t stop no matter how much he pleaded with himself._

_She pressed her hand over his mouth. She held him closer, putting his head into her shoulder as a mother would their fusing babe._

_From here, he could hear the race of her heart. It gave her away. Now he knew that she was just as afraid as he was._

_He knew what would happen then, for this dream always ended the same._

_The door burst open._

_The girl screamed._

_A gunshot rang._

_Peter watched her blood splatter on the wall behind them._

***

_Present_

_Brooklyn, New York._

Peter was sick of people telling him that everyone grieves in different ways because something wasn’t right about the way he was grieving his mom. 

Sure, she wasn’t the most nurturing mother, nor the most gentle, and she usually forgot about things like decathlon championships and band concerts and birthdays, but she was still mom. 

It was hard to explain -- and he wouldn’t to most people because he didn’t want them to think he was a bad son -- but he didn’t feel sad. He wasn’t mourning in the way he should have mourned. 

It felt like he grieved better last time, which was even weirder because he didn’t have a last time to compare this to. He never lost anyone he was close with, at least none that he could remember, yet something about this process felt a little too familiar. 

But like, weren’t people supposed to feel awful? Fall down this well where all they could do was listen to sad music, stare blankly out windows, and sob? 

He cried. Of course, he did. He lost his _mom._ But that was only yesterday when he just found out. 

Now, he just felt exhausted. 

Sam was the one who told him that mom was killed on her mission with Captain Rogers. She got too confident and tried to scale down a thirty-story building. Her foot slipped and she fell from twenty-seven stories up. They’d tried to save her, did everything they could, but she hit the concrete, and there was only so much they could do. 

Everything since then felt like it was clouded in murky water. 

Sam had him pack an overnight bag, then he drove him to the tower. Peter spent about an hour crying, then the rest of the night he watched Minecraft videos on his phone. He didn’t sleep or eat breakfast. He didn’t go to school that morning and only got out of the guest room when Mr. Stark requested that he come down to the lab. 

But he didn’t feel sad. Empty, maybe, or sluggish, but not sad. 

And he really wanted to feel sad because his mom meant too much for him to not be. 

“Don’t even sweat it, kid,” Mr. Stark had waved off when Peter had brought up these concerns. “I was so mad at my pops when he passed that I didn’t feel sad for weeks.”

“I’m not mad at my mom,” Peter scoffed defensively because the idea was absolutely ridiculous. 

Mr. Stark snorted. “Pete, _every_ teenager is mad at their mom.” 

Alright, so maybe Peter was mad. Well, maybe not _mad_. Perturbed, probably, or annoyed to an extreme level, but not mad. 

Because mom tried and she could be nice when she really wanted to, but man, she kinda sucked sometimes. 

Like the whole thing with his siblings. For most of his life, he was convinced that the three faceless children that wormed their way into his mind were fragments of old imaginary friends. Then, when he was thirteen, mom sat him down and told him that they were real. 

_“So those dreams I’ve had,” Peter started, tears fat and heavy in his eyes, “about the little girl in the closet, were those memories?”_

_Mom clicked her tongue and waved away his worries with a flick of her hand._

_“Those are just nightmares, Petya,” she assured. “Your siblings died in a car accident.”_

He realized not long after that he must have a father, too.

(Which was stupid because, yeah, obviously everyone has a dad. It was just the idea of _him_ having one was so bizarre that he might as well have been told he was part lizard). 

Mom confirmed his beliefs, and described his father briefly as a man who was lost, but could have had a beautiful heart. 

Peter didn’t know what she meant by that, and she wouldn’t elaborate. 

When Peter kept bugging her about it, she finally caved and invited Captain Rogers to come over and talk to him. Apparently, he knew his dad pretty well. 

But Peter never really liked the Captain because he always gave Peter these looks like he was an old friend who was about to pass away. Peter hated it. It made his skin crawl like he was covered in tiny bugs. 

When Captain Rogers came to their apartment to talk, he brought in old scrapbooks and notecards, but he couldn’t even open them. 

They sat at their kitchen table and Peter watched Steve cry trying to tell a story about his dad and the snow and a train. He didn’t finish, and he rushed out of their apartment before Peter could see any pictures. 

After that, the looks Captain Rogers gave him were worse, so Peter avoided him like the plague. 

It was just that morning that Peter was informed that he would finally meet his father. Pepper said his name was Bucky, and he was going to be watching Peter for a few days, per his mother’s request. Pepper had a look, though, like she thought this was a bad idea.

Ever since then, Peter worried obsessively whether the man would like him. 

He pictured a tall man, loving but firm. He had a smile that could be seen across a room. His fingers had calluses and there were scars littering his neck and chest, but he wasn’t rough. He’d grumble about taxes and mowing the lawn but would be the first one at any of Peter’s school events. He would make small talk with the other parents, boast about his son, and then take them to get pizza on their way home. 

However, the man he had pictured wasn’t quite the man who stood in front of him. 

This guy looked homeless, and kind of terrifying. The look he gave Peter made him feel sick, but there was something about him that felt familiar. Like maybe he was a substitute teacher Peter had in elementary school or someone he saw a lot on the subway. 

That’s probably why Peter hugged him. He didn’t really think about it before he rushed forward. It was like some freaky, phantom force pushed him toward this man because Peter didn’t really hug. Unless it’s Pepper or Sam or Ned, sometimes, when he hadn’t seen them for a while. Maybe he’d hug MJ when she’d let him. 

Besides that, he didn’t like to. It felt weird, and his mom wasn’t a hugger either so it wasn’t like it was something he grew up on. 

And hugging Bucky was definitely a mistake because Bucky tensed up like Peter tried to choke him and didn’t even take his hands out of his sweatshirt pockets to hug him back. 

Also, he smelled. Like, really bad. 

Peter stepped back quickly, putting a decent distance between the two of them. 

He wrung his hands and immediately looked at Sam.

“So, uh…” Peter tried to diffuse the tension, or maybe find a better way to introduce himself to his father, but he felt that he definitely ruined any possibility of salvaging that. 

“How are you, kid?” Sam asked instead, which sort of helped, but sort of didn’t because, well, Peter had been asked that all day and there was kind of an obvious answer, but it wasn’t really one he could say out loud. 

“I’m, uh,” Peter moved his head from side to side, then brought his hand up to make the so-so motion. “You know…”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed, putting his hands in his jean pockets and nodding stiffly. “Yeah.” 

A beat of incredibly awkward silence passed. 

“Where is she?” Peter asked, so abruptly that it even shocked him. 

“At the hospital,” Sam answered.

“Like in a bed still?” Peter pressed.

“Well, not really. She’s --” Sam stopped, and glanced at Bucky as if he would help. 

He didn’t. 

Sam slowly turned his head back to Peter. 

“ -- in a freezer,” he finished slowly, apprehensive of how Peter would react. 

“Oh,” Peter spoke, the word slipping out of his mouth in complete shock. 

It fell to the floor like a rock and left the room completely silent. 

It was dumb for him not to realize that was where they would put her. She’s a corpse now, after all, and corpses get put in things like freezers so they wouldn’t do things like decay. 

But Peter suddenly had this overwhelming urge to tell them that they should take her out because mom hated the cold. 

“Can I see her?” he asked instead. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, she looks okay, doesn’t she? Not like -- ” 

It occurred to him then what his mom’s body might look like after falling down twenty-seven stories. 

He swallowed dryly. “ -- smashed?” 

Sam looked at Bucky again, and Peter didn’t know why because he had yet to hear this man speak and it didn’t seem like he was going to anytime soon. 

But Bucky looked at Sam and fulfilled his unspoken request. 

“She looks fine,” Bucky told Sam. “Her body was designed to heal quickly, even when it’s dead.” 

And Peter _really_ didn’t know how to respond to that. Just the way Bucky said it made him feel kind of gross. Like his mom was some kind of machine. 

He also realized that he kind of hated Bucky’s voice. It was cold and emotionless. It made Peter’s stomach churn and his skin prickle. Mom wasn’t the most emotive person but, come on, how the hell was this guy his father? 

“Can I see her?” Peter asked again, hoping for a nice answer this time. 

Bucky looked at Peter this time. His face seemed stern but his eyes were empty. 

He reminded Peter of that old movie _The Terminator_ , and not in a good way. 

“If you want to,” Bucky concluded, speaking to Peter for the first time maybe ever. “But, she looks dead. It doesn’t look like she’s sleeping or anything. It’s just her corpse.”

“Uh,” Peter trailed off, looking to Sam for help. “Maybe I shouldn’t then?” 

Sam was too busy giving Bucky a stern look. 

And Peter was too busy praying that the ground would open up and swallow him whole so he wouldn’t have to go home with this guy and he’d never have to have a conversation like this again. 

***

Sam and Mr. Stark drove them to Peter’s apartment, for moral support was what Mr. Stark had said. And so they wouldn’t have to take the subway. 

But no one talked the entire way there, all silently staring out windows or at their laps. Peter thought that the subway would’ve been a lot better. 

They were dropped off, walked inside, and told to call if they needed anything. 

“And I mean _anything_ ,” Mr. Stark emphasized, giving Peter a pointed look like he was expecting a call no matter what. 

They left, and the newfound father and son are left very alone in the tense apartment. 

Peter didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know what to do with his body. Should he offer Bucky a drink? Should he hide away in his room? Should he sit down on the couch and watch T.V. and hope that Bucky would just sit down and join him? Should he tell Bucky that he was sorry, and really didn’t want to be stuck in this situation either?

Peter didn’t have to worry for long because Bucky promptly stormed into the kitchen.

Peter exhaled quietly and went to sit on the couch, his tension evaporating like air from a balloon. 

Until Bucky started tearing through their kitchen cabinets. 

“Uh,” Peter blinked, following Bucky’s jerky but calculated movements with wide eyes. He could see now that Bucky’s left hand was reflective, like metal. 

Maybe his dad was a cool, spy, cyborg. Or something. 

“What’re you looking for?” Peter asked so he wouldn’t say something like _‘are you a cool, spy cyborg?’_

“Bugs,” Bucky bit back as he started pulling open the drawers. 

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that!” Peter assured, hoping that Bucky would stop ruining his kitchen. “Mom’s got pest control here like once a month. We had a cockroach infestation like three years ago and mom _freaked_ so she’s had them ever --”

“Not _bugs_ ,” Bucky hissed. “Bugs. Tiny, listening devices. Microphones. I’m sure Stark had them put everywhere.” 

He tossed aside the Tupperware he was looking at and then moved into the living room. He stiffly motioned for Peter to stand up. 

He did and scurried to the far corner of the room so Bucky could pull off the couch cushions.

“Um,” Peter muttered. “Okay?” 

So maybe not a _cool_ cyborg spy, but definitely some kind of spy. An Uncool One, perhaps. 

It took Bucky all of fifteen minutes, but he somehow managed to make a mess of the entire apartment. 

Peter stood in the corner of the living room, stiff and a little bit terrified, as he dreaded the idea of having to clean this all up. 

“No bugs,” Bucky confirmed. He looked at Peter, eyes cold and lifeless. “Where is your bathroom?” 

Peter numbly pointed at the door beside his bedroom, still staring at the mess that he would have to sort out. 

Bucky nodded tersely and took a step toward the bathroom. He froze abruptly like he was reminded of a formality before he turned back on his heels to face Peter. 

“I will…” his eyes darted around the mess in the living room, “clean this.” 

With that, he rushed the rest of the way to the bathroom. 

The second the bathroom door slammed shut, Peter felt a wave of thick tension slowly drain from his shoulders. It left a residue, like in his stomach and toes, but that was manageable. 

He kinda hoped that Bucky was going to take a shower because -- and maybe he was an asshole for thinking this -- he didn’t want Bucky’s, you know, _grime_ to get all over his house. He didn’t even mind if Bucky had to use his soap and stuff, especially since Bucky didn’t seem to bring anything like that with him. 

Come to think of it, Bucky didn’t bring _anything_ with him. Not even a duffle bag or a toothbrush. 

Peter would mind if he used his toothbrush. 

He pondered if there were any spares below the sink. 

The sound of the shower turning on was dulled by the door, and Peter sighed in relief. A little bit more tension was released from his stomach. He’d worry about finding Bucky a toothbrush later (and clothes and whatever else he would need to stay here for, well, however long he was supposed to be staying here). 

Peter retreated to his room, shutting the door behind him to give him some peace that he had yet to have since he got the news yesterday. 

It lasted about thirty seconds because his phone started buzzing in his pocket. 

**_Incoming Call:_ **

**_Ned (is totally awesome cool like) Leeds_ **

Peter huffed, tossing the idea of not answering around in his head. He’d been ignoring Ned’s calls for the past day and a half. 

Peter didn’t tell him what happened, but he knew Ned knew because he sent him a paragraph long text that started with _‘hey, I heard about your mom…’_

Peter never finished reading it because he was just too tired. 

Sam probably told Ned to make sure Peter had someone he was close with to check in because that was a very Sam thing to do. 

Peter groaned, pressing his palm against his forehead as he realized that he had ignored Ned for long enough. Also, he was going to school tomorrow (because no way was he staying home with his murder-y cyborg spy father who couldn’t say more than three words to him) and he really didn’t want to have this conversation at school. 

He answered, took a deep breath, and held the phone to his ear. 

“Hey, Ned,” he greeted, voice wearier than he had intended. 

_“Peter!”_ Ned responded, his tone surprised like he was totally expecting to get sent to voicemail again. _“I’m so sorry about your mom. I couldn’t believe it when Sam told me. I mean, that’s just -- terrible, Peter. I’m so sorry.”_

His voice was rushed, and wet like he had been crying, and it made Peter hate himself a little bit more.

_“How have you been doing?”_

And yup, there was the question. The dreaded question that people couldn’t help but keep asking. How did they expect him to respond? _Good? Bad? I don’t know because my mom’s never coming home but my brain can’t seem to stop thinking that she’s still on that mission and this whole thing is just a really vivid dream? Also, I don’t feel sad so can you tell me what the fuck is wrong with me?_

Peter closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Better,” he settled on because it raised the least amount of questions. “Thanks.” 

_“Yeah! Peter, listen, if there’s anything you need, anything at all, my mom said you’re more than welcome to come here and we would do anything to make sure you’re --”_

“Ned?” Peter cut him off, dropping his hand and tucking it into his opposite elbow. 

_“Yeah?”_

“I met my dad.” 

A pause. 

_“Woah,”_ Ned gasped. 

He knew, a least a little bit, about Peter’s family. Peter didn’t tell him about his siblings or anything, but Ned knew he had some absent father living God-knows-where that Peter still wanted to meet. 

_“What’s he like?”_

“He’s…” Peter started, lulling his head as he tried to describe him. He collapsed onto his bed, flopping backward as he groaned. “ _Weird_ , dude. He talks like a robot or some brainwashed assassin or something. He kinda has an accent, so I guess he’s Russian, like my mom.” 

_“Cool,”_ Ned responded as if he wasn’t quite sure what else to say. _“Wait, then how did you get the last name Barnes?”_

Peter shrugged as if Ned could see it. 

“Don’t know. Captain Rogers knew him, too. Pretty well, I guess, so maybe he lived here for a while and then moved to Russia and met my mom,” Peter blinked, realizing that the fact that Captain Rogers knew him didn’t make any sense given he was found in the ice only like five years before Peter was born. 

He shook that thought away, storing it away to deal with later. 

“Anyways, he’s different from what I remember, I’ll tell you that.” 

_“You’ve met him before?”_ Ned asked, his voice pitched in confusion. 

And Peter didn’t --

Huh. 

He didn’t know. 

“I don’t know,” Peter muttered, voice barely audible. Then, louder, “I just meant that he feels familiar, kind of. Like I met him before.” 

He doubted that he ever had, there was just a feeling he got. A weird one. Like he wanted to vomit or cry or run up and hug Bucky all over again. 

There was a long pause like Ned was trying and failing to come up with a response. 

And Peter didn’t know what else to say without it being _‘is it weird that I’m not sad?’_ so he just told Ned, “Hey, I have to go.” 

_“Okay,”_ Ned said, trying to sound perky but the quivering sound of worry was clear in his voice. _“Well, just know that you can talk to me, like about anything. I’m always here for you.”_

“Thanks,” Peter returned, trying to actually sound grateful but he just sounded numb. It wasn’t like he could actually talk to Ned -- or anyone -- about this, but everyone was still offering. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” 

_“Totally! Bye, Peter.”_

The line clicked, and Peter was left in silence again. 

The shower had stopped running, and Bucky wasn’t making any noise, so for a split second, Peter thought he was home alone just as he had been two nights ago when mom was still on her mission. 

It wasn’t abnormal for him to be alone. Mom went on missions more often than not, and Peter had been able to watch after himself since he was fourteen. He didn’t mind it, usually, but there were nights where he’d call her. 

She’d always answer, no matter the time of day it was for her. 

_“When are you going to be back?” he’d ask, clutching his pillow beneath his chin and tucking his knees to his chest._

_“Oh, Petrushka,” she’d laugh fondly. “You miss me already?”_

He already had his contacts in his phone opened and almost pressed her name when it struck him. 

It was like the news was fresh. Like Sam had just knocked on the door, had him sit down, and, with tears in his eyes, he turned away and muttered under his breath, _“God, I can’t do this.”_

That burning shock zipped through Peter's body like an electric current, then slowly left him numb. 

“Oh,” he mumbled and dropped his phone into his lap. “Right.” 

He couldn’t call her because she wouldn’t answer. She wouldn’t answer because she was dead. 

He wanted to throw his phone against the wall, hard enough to make it break, but as he wound his arm back and aimed, he realized just how stupid that would be. 

And anyway, he really didn’t want to spook Bucky more than he needed to for one day. 

So he turned it off, tossed it under his bed, and threw his duvet over his head, hoping that sleep would greet him soon. 

***

_“...until the spring?... No, I don’t mind. It’s just my--uh, Peter might not like it.”_

The strange voice came from the living room, muffled by the wall. It was what woke Peter. 

He was confused, for a second, brain fogged with fatigue, as he tried to figure out which of mom’s coworkers needed to be here at the asscrack of dawn. 

But then he remembered, fast like being stung by a bee. 

Mom was dead. His father was not. And Peter’s life had gone completely upside down in less than forty-eight hours. 

Peter snuffled and rolled over into his pillow. He cracked open one eye and glanced at his alarm clock. 

**_6:54 a.m._ **

He groaned, closing his eyes again and pleading for time to go back so he could have a few more hours of sleep. 

He rolled out of bed reluctantly, fished the first pair of pants and shirt he could find in his dresser, and shrugged them on. 

He carded his hands through his bedhead to try to make it look sort of presentable. 

The voice continued talking as Peter opened the door to his room. 

“I don’t care if Steve comes or not. He was closer to her than I was,” Bucky’s voice filled up the main room. He sounded tired like this was an argument had before. 

Peter didn’t pay attention to exactly what was being said, but he did notice that the throw blanket was crumpled on the couch, almost as if someone had used it to sleep. 

He turned his head toward the back part of the apartment. 

Bucky stood by the window, his back against the wall and his neck craning as he peeked through the little slit in the blinds. 

As soon as he heard the floor squeak, his eyes flashed to Peter. 

He flipped his phone closed, abruptly ending whatever conversation with whoever was on the other line. Then, he turned back to look out the window. 

Peter tried to be discrete when he rolled his eyes and headed for the kitchen, his rumbling stomach keeping his mind focused on one thing and one thing only: 

Breakfast. 

The cupboard squeaked when he opened it, a sharp, thrill twang that made Peter’s eyes throb. 

He glanced at Bucky, hoping he didn’t disturb him from whatever spy business he was doing. 

He caught Bucky’s eyes right as they finished turning back to the window. 

Peter turned back to the cabinet, grabbing a bowl and a box of cereal from the shelf above it. He was quieter when he grabbed the milk from the fridge and a spoon from the silverware drawer. 

He poured his cereal into the bowl with shaky hands, grossly aware of any micro-movement he had made. He could feel eyes on the back of his neck, burning two little holes like laser beams. He didn’t turn around to look at those eyes as he poured in his milk. 

Peter shuffled to the table, trying not to spill his breakfast. Some milk teetered over his bowl and splashed on the floor, making a soft wet pop once it splattered. 

It made him think of --

Maybe his mom --

When she fell --

Looked like --

He sat down, so hard that the chair shot backward and shrieked against the linoleum tile. The noise shot straight up his spine and rattled around in his brain like a pinball. 

He glanced sheepishly over to Bucky. 

Bucky had fixed him with an expression, a sort of bemused expression like he wasn’t sure if Peter would grow three heads or if he was just stupid. 

Peter ducked his head. 

“Um,” he said, trying once again to break the silence. “Who were you talking to?” 

Bucky shifted against the wall, craning his neck to look back outside. There was something offputting about his face like he was worried a bomb might get tossed in or something. 

“Sam Wilson,” Bucky muttered eventually.

“Was he -- ” 

_\-- making sure we’re not dead?_

Peter cleared his throat. “What did he want?” 

“We can’t bury your mom until spring,” Bucky informed. “The ground is too hard now because of the snow.” 

“Spring?” Peter sputtered. “That’s like three months from now.” 

Bucky gave Peter a look like he was asking _so what?_

Peter squirmed, looking back at his now soggy cereal as he continued. “I just don’t like the idea of her being in the freezer that long. She hates the cold. Like, _really,_ hates it.” 

Peter wasn’t going to talk about the winter nights where he heard her muttering, spewing out Russian like a spell to break an unknown curse. Or how she’d become as frigid as the air around them and wouldn’t talk to Peter until it went away. He wouldn’t mention that he only saw her cry once and it was because the heater wouldn’t turn on. 

He couldn’t -- _wouldn’t_ \-- do that to her. No one could know that sometimes even she could be weak. 

Bucky fixed Peter with an odd, calculating look like he was trying to figure out if Peter was being serious. 

“She can’t feel the cold,” Bucky informed him eventually, speaking slowly as if he wasn’t sure Peter understood that. “She’s dead.” 

Peter huffed, wet and bitter. “Yeah, you keep telling me that.” 

The room fell quiet again. A tense sort of quiet where every buzz through the air could be felt on your skin. 

“How’d you meet my mom anyway?” Peter heard himself ask, but didn’t quite register that he actually asked it until Bucky snapped his head so sharply toward him that Peter was suddenly afraid he’d get shot. 

Peter must have worn his emotion on his face because Bucky quickly made himself relax. Like, moved his shoulders down a little too far and chewed his lip to keep from scowling. 

“Why are you asking?” Bucky questioned, his stern tone diluted with a forced sense of relaxation.

Peter shrugged, half because he wanted to seem nonchalant and half because he really didn’t know why. 

It didn’t matter and it wasn’t like Bucky was actually going to tell him. But still, he couldn’t help but wonder. 

His mom wasn’t one for romance. She didn’t even like to see it in movies. Would always curl her lip and scoff whenever a couple kissed on T.V. She’d say something about it being disrespectful, for two to love each other so openly like that. 

So how, on God’s earth, did she find one man to fall in love and have four children with? 

Of course, there was always the pretty obvious possibility that she didn’t love him. 

Peter wasn’t even all that sure that she loved him. 

But she had to. And she told him she did once or twice. She just wasn’t all that great at showing it. 

“Just curious,” Peter finally answered. He stirred his cereal around, mindlessly watching them race through his bowl. 

Bucky still didn’t answer his question. 

“You know, I wouldn’t even care if it was just a one night stand,” Peter sputtered awkwardly, trying to joke to make light of the situation. 

And, because Peter’s brain and mouth literally didn’t know how to work when he was nervous, he kept going, like a faucet that without a stopper or an alarm with no off switch. 

“Well, I guess that wouldn’t make sense either since there were four of us. Unless, you know, we all had different dads. I guess I hadn’t really considered that. And honestly, I hadn’t really considered the fact that my dad would be an actual real-life person or cyborg spy thing until you came in and oh my God, I’m just gonna --” 

Peter scrambled out of his chair, his hip bumping harshly against the table and knocking over his bowl. He didn’t clean it -- or even notice it -- as he rushed into the living room to grab his backpack and leave before he could get another look at Bucky’s pale face. 

***

The days sort of blurred together after that. 

Every day, Peter woke up, went to school, pretended to laugh with Ned, kissed MJ, went home, made dinner, offered it to Bucky, Bucky wouldn’t eat it, did his homework, wished he could watch TV if Bucky wasn’t sleeping on the couch, took a shower, brushed his teeth, and went to bed. 

Every day felt murky. Every interaction with Bucky was bleak. Any hope for a normal life was slowly draining away. 

In empty moments of the day, like when he was alone in the bathroom or lying in bed, he’d squeeze his eyes closed and think:

_Mom’s dead. Be sad. Mom’s dead. Be sad._

And it never worked. 

For some weird and absolutely stupid reason, Peter still checked his phone like five times a day to see if his mom had called him. 

And then he’d have to remind himself that she wasn’t ever going to call him again. 

And then he’d have to remind himself to feel sad. 

And then it wouldn’t work. 

Every day. 

Rinse. Wash. Repeat. 

Guilt wormed its way into his stomach until it began to fester like an untreated sore. It reminded him of nights, not so long ago, where he’d feel this feeling. He wouldn’t know where it came from but it would eat away at him until he’d come out of the shower with red, blistering burns up and down his arms. 

_“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” his mom would say after she saw the state of his skin._

_“For what?” Peter would ask._

_“Surviving.”_

He never knew what she meant, and he lost any opportunity he had to ask her. 

***

One day after school when Peter was mindlessly messing with his laptop because he was trapped in his bedroom since Bucky was in the living room and everything about going out there felt awful, he decided to google the normal stages of grief. 

He hoped to find some forum filled with people stuck in his same situation, although that thought in itself was rather bleak. 

What he found, instead, was denial. 

According to healthline.com, it was the first of five stages. The website described it as; 

_“Denying what happened gives you time to more gradually absorb the news and begin to process it. This is a common defense mechanism…”_

“Blah, blah, blah,” Peter muttered under his breath, scrolling down to read the rest of the section. 

He scrolled until he saw that there was an example of denying the death of a loved one, and it said something like;

_“She’s not dead! She’s going to come around this corner any moment and everything will be normal again.”_

“Huh,” Peter huffed lamely, staring blankly at the words that felt like they were written specifically for him. 

He squinted at the little camera on his laptop -- that his mom taped over before she gave it to him -- and briefly wondered how long the little FBI man had been watching him. 

While he didn’t love being watched by the government, he felt a wash of relief wash over him like pleasantly warm water. 

He was just in denial. There wasn’t anything wrong with him at all. All he had to do was realize that his mom was dead. 

He didn’t think before he ran out of his room, bursting through the door and scaring Bucky pale-white from where he was sitting on the couch. 

“Hi,” Peter started awkwardly, feeling weirdly out of breath. “Is it okay if I go to the hospital?” 

Bucky glanced at the front door--almost as if he was trying to find an escape--before he slid his wide eyes to Peter and asked in his monotone voice, “Are you...okay?” 

It didn’t sound like a question, but Bucky didn’t seem to have the inflection capacity to make anything sound like a question. 

Peter wasn’t sure how he should answer that because it kind of felt like he was having a heart attack. 

“Yeah, I was just wondering if I could --” Peter swallowed and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. He spoke next with his tone more sure. “I need to see my mom.” 

***

The bottom floor hospital was stark white and smelled so strongly of bleach that Peter was afraid it would burn off his eyebrows. 

Bucky walked unsurely behind him, glaring at the back of the doctor’s head. Peter watched the light from the fluorescents above them reflect onto the shiny, white tiled floor. 

The doctor led them through the hallway, timidly adjusting his tie and occasionally glancing back at Peter and his estranged spy dad. 

“It’s right, uh, here,” the doctor stammered, swallowing as he pushed open the door. 

Peter tentatively followed him inside. He watched as the doctor looked over the names on the drawers and opened one. 

The next moments went slow like time passed through thick syrup. 

The doctor pulled open the drawer. Out came a body bag. He reached for the zipper. He tugged it down. The flaps fell open. 

And laying there, pale and stiff, was Peter’s frozen mother. 

And she was dead. Like, very, _very_ dead. It definitely didn’t look like she was sleeping, especially since she was in a fucking _body bag_ and her face was paler than Peter thought was humanly possible and oh _God_ , he couldn’t do this. 

He briskly walked past her, keeping his head forward so he wouldn’t have to look at her. He stopped abruptly, like a half-dozed driver slamming on his brakes. 

He needed to do this better, for himself and for her. He needed to say goodbye. 

He turned around on the balls of his feet, landing silently when he finally faced back toward her. He kept his eyes turned up to the ceiling, looking at the speckled tiles 

“Can I just have a second to say bye?” Peter begged, voice barely louder than a whisper. 

The doctor, thank God, nodded, rather unsurely, but he left the room none-the-less. 

Peter would normally feel bad that he sent the obviously nervous doctor out to stand with his insanely intimidating father, but he couldn’t feel much else but _oh my God, I’m standing in the same room as my mother’s corpse._

The door shut. Peter opened his mouth. 

“I --” 

His throat closed, growing thick with mucus and blocking any words from coming through. 

“I uh --” 

He bravely glanced down, body trembling like it stood in the middle of an earthquake. 

Her face was blue, so were her lips and eyelids. There was an inhuman quality about her like she was made of stone. Her hair, where it was once vibrant and full, was thin, dead, and white. Her forehead held a giant gash, the one that killed her, but it leaked no blood. Of course, it didn’t because she was dead. 

Really dead. 

Actually very, really _dead_. 

A sob broke through him instead, breaking through his mouth like a rat out of its cage. Tears poured down his face, hot and fat. They cut paths in his cheeks and it stung like being shocked by a faulty light switch. His stomach burned and twisted in awful knots. His throat was filled with ooze so thick it sunk its way down into his chest. 

Instead of words of farewell, choked sobs fell past his lips. He bit the inside of his cheek, desperate to keep quiet and not alert the two men standing outside, but he couldn’t quiet his cries.

He stood there, broken and hurt, in front of his mother’s cold, dead body. He turned his head, put a hand over his eyes for good measure, unable to look at her again. 

_Mama, please, I hope you can hear me,_ Peter pleaded in his head. _I should’ve mourned you. I should’ve called you more. I was supposed to love you better and I don’t know why I didn’t. I don’t want to be mad at you. I just want you to come home. I’m sorry I couldn’t say this, I just couldn’t, but I miss you. And I love you. And I want you to come back._

He pressed his hand harder over his eyes and curled his free arm around his stomach, worried he would fall or vomit or faint. 

He scrambled out of the room, eyes wet and wide and red and face flushed and heavy. 

He stumbled out, and gave the shocked doctor a quick, “Thank you.” 

For formality. And because he did feel bad for leaving him out here alone with Bucky. 

And Bucky gave Peter this look, this wide-eyed, protective look like he wanted to reach out and grab him and hold him tight and tell him he was okay. But he didn’t. And maybe Peter was just projecting because he just wanted someone to hug him right now. He just wanted someone to tell him that his mom was going to come home tomorrow and everything would be okay again. 

But no one told him anything. They left the hospital without exchanging a word. 

Bucky didn’t say anything to him, not until they were on the subway. 

They were standing in the middle, pressed against bundled strangers. 

“Do you speak Russian?” Bucky implored, voice low. 

Peter nodded once without asking why Bucky was wondering. 

Then, in their mother tongue, Bucky leaned forward and said, _“The first time seeing a corpse is difficult to understand. For you, it should become easier.”_

_For it is in your blood_ , Mama’s favorite words rang through his head. 

It wasn’t the way Bucky worded it that made Peter feel ill (Bucky had said weirder, after all). It was the message behind it. 

Peter responded in kind. _“I don’t think it was my first.”_

Because there was something about her -- and he would keep this to himself, of course -- that felt grossly familiar. Like in the way his dad felt familiar. 

They simply rode the rest of the way home in silence, and when they got home, he went to bed and fell asleep crying.

***

The dream was always the same. 

_Peter and the girl hid in the coat closet..._

***

He hated waking up like this. 

Eyes opening into pitch black. His heart pounding so hard it made his body tremble. His airway was tight and his body was covered in a cold layer of sweat. 

If he had this nightmare a week ago, he would’ve gone to his mom’s room, cuddled under her ridiculous amount of blankets, and pressed himself to her side. 

She would wake, of course, and press one small kiss to his forehead, but she wouldn’t say a word. 

In the morning, they would pretend like it never happened. 

He debated going to her room just for the familiarity of it, but he knew that empty sheets and stale air were bound to make him weary. 

He couldn’t stay in bed though, not with how hard his heart was pounding and how bad his limbs were shaking. 

He pushed a hand through his sweaty hair, kicked his sheets off, and pushed himself out of bed. 

It was hard to stand on wobbly legs and impossible to see with his lights off. He didn’t want to turn them on because somehow that would just make this worse. But he couldn’t just stand in the middle of his room all night. 

It was a quick race of a decision. 

Bathroom? Too small. 

Living room? Too big -- and Bucky was probably sleeping. 

Kitchen? Well, Peter could probably sneak past the living room quietly enough to not wake the sleeping cyborg spy, get himself a glass of water, and maybe sit at the table and play on his phone until his heart calmed down. 

He left his room, opening and closing his door as silently as possible. 

The first thing he noticed is it wasn’t dark. They had blackout curtains and no nightlights, so the living room and kitchen were the darkest part of the apartment at night. 

Then, he saw that the couch was empty. 

He rubbed his head and glanced around the small space to try to locate his father. 

It didn’t take long. 

Sitting at the table under the dull kitchen light was Bucky. 

His back was hunched and he was staring intently at something resting on the table. 

Peter could’ve turned around. He could’ve gone back into his room. 

But something about Bucky’s posture drew him forward, like an invisible tether reeling him in. 

He tiptoed forward until he could see part of Bucky’s face. 

His face was flushed and shiny, almost like he was drunk. But if this man was any more like Peter’s mother, than that was impossible. 

His metal hand was curled into a fist and pressed against his mouth. His other held tightly onto a framed picture. Three others laid out in front of him. 

The pictures…

The pictures make Peter go numb, and not because they were disturbing or grotesque, but because they each were of smiling, gleeful children. 

The one in Bucky’s hand was of a curly hair, doe-eyed little boy. His face was speckled with tiny freckles. His mouth was frozen mid-laugh, a huge, care-free grin. He was beaming up at someone off-camera. 

“Is that me?” Peter asked, his whispered voice cracking through the nighttime silence like a gunshot. 

Bucky whipped around as if Peter’s voice had been that gun, racing his fist like he was going to attack or protect himself. His breath and eyes were wild like a rabid dog. 

“Sorry!” Peter squeaked, shuffling backward and raising his hands to show he wasn’t a threat. He nodded back at the picture and explained, “I just -- I’ve only seen pictures of me after age, like, six., so I wasn’t sure.” 

Bucky didn’t respond, but his body relaxed slightly. His face calmed as he turned back to the pictures and nodded. 

“This one’s you,” he said, lifting the picture of the cheeky little boy. 

Peter took it as permission to walk closer. He approached the table cautiously as if he was walking up to a stray dog. He kept his hands at his sides, palms open and gentle. 

Bucky acknowledged this subtly, just turning his chin. 

Peter took his chances and sat down in the empty chair. 

Bucky’s eyes darted toward Peter’s hands from where they rested on the table. He didn’t look at Peter’s face, or anywhere close, before he cleared his throat and pointed at the picture of the laughing little boy, who was maybe four. 

The boy had unruly white-blonde hair, sticking up every way as if he had been struck by lightning. 

“This is your brother,” Bucky said carefully, voice dry as he tapped his finger on the picture.

Bucky paused, recognizing that they had crossed the point of no return. 

Peter sat stiffly, not daring to move at all because if he did, Bucky might stop and Peter would never know anything about these three children who were so closely tied to his beginnings, but he couldn’t match their faces to any in his brain. 

_Please go on,_ he pleaded internally, hoping Bucky could hear him through the depths of his eyes. 

“These are your sisters,” Bucky continued, pointing to the two frames holding grinning girls. One, the younger one, had deep, red hair, just like his mom’s. The older one was blonde, and her face was calmer than her siblings. She was beautiful in a youthful sort of way. 

Peter stared at her face the longest. At her soft smile. At her nearly translucent hair. The hair that had blocked this face from him for years. 

He now knew her smile as well as her blood, and, God, what a sick feeling that was. 

He noticed then that Bucky was watching, calculating any expression on his face. He was probably expecting Peter to say something, maybe some kind of answer to an unasked question. 

“I don’t remember them, if you were wondering,” Peter spoke softly, and gently raised his hand toward the blonde girl’s picture. 

Bucky raised his hand, too roughly, ready to smack Peter’s hand away. 

Peter quickly moved back, pushing his chair away from the pictures and Bucky, and held his hand in front of him. A jerk reaction. He didn’t know where he picked it up. Mom never hit him, and she’d kill anyone who tried. 

Strange, still because he thought he might have picked it up from watching her. 

Bucky froze, recognizing what happened, and stiffly dropped his arm. 

“You don’t?” he asked, voice robotic. 

Peter stared at him, eyes wide and cheeks flushed, until he slowly nodded. 

“I mean,” he continued, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away, “Sometimes I have these dreams. And I honestly don’t know if they’re dreams or if they’re maybe memories, but I remember this girl. She’s blonde and young, but she’s cradling me. And she’s telling me that everything’s going to be okay, but she sounds like,” he paused, and huffed awkwardly, “I don’t know, she sounds like she’s not so sure.” 

Bucky didn’t say anything to that. He looked back at the carefully placed pictures and gingerly picked up one of a little girl with white-blonde hair. 

The room grew quiet, nothing but the sound of the buzzing fluorescent light above them. 

“That was Yelena,” Bucky stated, voice hollow but sure.

Peter looked at the far wall. He wanted to wipe away the sting in his eyes without Bucky finding out that he was about to cry. 

“Yelena,” Peter whispered slowly, hitting each syllable. He was trying the name for the first time, but it felt normal on his tongue. Welcomed like an old friend. 

“That’s pretty,” he offered eventually, clearing his throat and looking back at Bucky. “My mom, uh, she never really told me their names.” 

“You had another sister,” Bucky started, and Peter was surprised by his quick response. “Wanda. And your brother, Pietro.” 

He spoke like he had been waiting to say these names for years, but was just waiting for someone to give him permission to say them. 

Peter nodded slowly, neck creaking like old, wooden stairs that shouldn’t be climbed anymore. These names, too, felt like an old memory. One that he had stored in a box, pushed to the back of his brain, and promised to open later, but he forgot the box was there at all. 

“I like those names,” he offered. “They sound familiar.”

Bucky hummed but did nothing else in response as he went back to staring at the pictures, stroking the photographed face of the blonde little girl. 

_Yelena_ , Peter repeated like a mantra in his head. _Her name was Yelena._

“Do you know what happened to them?” Peter asked, voice meek. “My mom told me that they died in a car accident, but she lied -- sometimes, you know, not like a lot -- but I have this feeling that maybe she lied about this.”

Bucky didn’t respond, but he did tense. His finger froze on the picture and his eyes went sharp. 

“Do you think that dream actually happened?” Peter pressed further. “We’re in a closet. Me and uh, Yelena, I guess. And she’s scared and she gets -- well, she gets -- you know, sh -- ” 

“Go to bed, Petya,” Bucky whispered his plea, voice thick and shaky. 

The nickname is surprising, not just because it was Bucky saying it, but because no one on Earth called him Petya but his mom. He didn’t think anyone _knew_ about the name Petya, just in general. 

It crossed his mind -- quickly, like a flash of white light -- that maybe mom learned it from Bucky. 

Bucky, who was still looking at the photograph, but not really looking at it. 

Peter desperately wanted to see what his face looked like because maybe then he would know what he was thinking, but Bucky strategically hid his face behind his long, greasy hair. 

Peter debated for a second pressing the subject anyway, but there was something about Bucky that made Peter think that maybe he didn’t actually want to know what happened. At least, not that night. 

“Okay,” Peter relented, standing up from his chair and taking a step backward out of the kitchen. “Goodnight, Bucky.” 

His shoulders sunk, drooping like a popped balloon as the hope of finally learning what had happened vaporized into nothing. 

He turned around and hurried to his bedroom, but not before he heard Bucky’s barely-there response. 

It was tentative like maybe he wanted to try it out for the first time, but Peter still heard him. 

“Sleep well, kiddo.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be more bonding with Bucky and Peter!
> 
> Also, has everyone seen wandavision yet?? i love it so much and I would love to hear any theories people might have. also I made a tik tok post about how the mcu mistreats its women characters and I got a lot of mean dudebro comments so if anyone has anything funny to say pls do I could use a pick me up lmao


	4. chapter three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains mind control and the accidental murder of children at the end. It's brief and not graphic, but if this is something that disturbs or triggers you, please feel free to skip over the last section that starts with _the soldat_

_Bucky - the father_

***

_Fourteen some-odd years ago_

The first time Bucky left his children, it was all Steve’s fault. 

Which was funny since it was Steve who had rescued them in the first place. 

And Bucky, as a way of thanks, tried to strangle him in the gym. But that was when Bucky was not yet Bucky, and was still the soldier or James Buchanan Barnes or maybe something in between. 

Steve should have known better. Sneaking up on not-quite-Bucky only a week after their rescue when he was as wired as a spring coil. 

But Bucky was still the one sent away for recovery. He put up one hell of a fight, begging for them not to take him from his children who he was finally able to love freely. 

They stole him anyway, and while the time away felt torturous, in the end, it was for the best. 

The treatment center was on an island off the New York coast. There was a beautiful beach with golden sand and luscious palm trees and all Bucky wanted to do was tear through the building, throw himself in the ocean, and swim back to his children. 

But when he caught himself whittling a piece of soap so he could shank his therapist and run out to the sea, he began to think that staying there for a little while longer was perhaps the best idea. 

After a few weeks, his aggression subsided, but his ambition still stayed. He would get better for his children. 

Steve helped with the transition. He told Bucky stories of their youth and made them dinner and left Bucky alone whenever he asked and tried to make him laugh with stupid jokes and squeezed him tight when Bucky thought he was going to explode. 

It started innocent, of course. Two old pals getting to know each other again. Remembering the good old days. Getting into trouble. 

Until one night when Steve was cooking spaghetti, Bucky leaned over and pressed his lips to Steve’s in a fumbling and terrible kiss. 

Bucky half expected to get shoved away, to get screamed at, to be asked what the hell was wrong with him. 

But all Steve did was belly laugh and pull him in for another. 

After that, Steve started sleeping in Bucky’s bed. Or maybe it was Bucky staying in Steve’s. It didn’t matter. All that did was that they were beginning to feel a wave of happiness that they fought off for decades. 

“I was so afraid of you dying,” Steve whispered his secret confession one night. His hand gripped Bucky’s left in a sharp vice. “I worried that I’d never be able to tell you how much I loved you.” 

Bucky snorted and brought Steve’s knuckles to his mouth and gave them a kiss. 

“If it’s worth anything, pal,” Bucky snarked, “I already knew.” 

Bucky asked about the children every day. How were they doing? Who was watching them? What would they do in a day? Had any of them started laughing yet? 

After a month at the center, Bucky’s therapist introduced him to video-chat, and they quickly set up the first meeting with his children. 

_“Papa!”_ they all screamed, tiny faces squished together so they could all fit on the screen. The three oldest beamed while an older woman held a bubbly baby Peter on her hip. 

Bucky was so used to their tiny, serious faces and hollow eyes that he almost didn’t recognize them with these smiles. 

“Oh my God,” he laughed, wiping away at his eyes. “You’re all so beautiful.” 

They giggled - a melodic noise, the most beautiful Bucky had ever heard - and made him repeat it in Russian so they could understand. 

They talked about their adventures, the nice people they had met and the games they had played and these tiny things called pills that they needed to take. 

The therapist told Bucky later that the children were recovering wonderfully. He was assured that they would be okay. That they would most likely forget, except maybe Yelena. 

They might need more therapy and a little bit more patience, but they could be happy. 

After two months when Bucky was no longer not-quite-Bucky and was just Bucky, he was able to go home to them. 

He remembered that day clearly and sometimes would think about it right before he drifted to sleep. 

Steve’s hand was clammy in his as they entered the apartment. Bucky put down his bag and barely called out when the children were running over. 

Pietro grabbed him first, jumping into his arms and wrapping his tiny arms around his neck. Wanda grabbed his leg and held on tight. Yelena walked over, a more reserved smile on her face, as she held Peter in a struggling grip. 

Bucky took him from her arms, careful to balance both him and Pietro, and beckoned her closer. 

She ran and grabbed his other leg, standing opposite of her sister. 

He managed to crouch down, and all the children huddled into his lap and arms as he cuddled them close, kissed their heads, and wept. 

“My babies,” he whispered, pulling them closer as if they would disappear again. “Oh, my babies.” 

Yelena was the only child who cried. The others were so overcome with their joy, and still so young, that they didn’t understand what this moment meant. 

For it was the first time ever that Bucky was able to love and to be loved by the people who meant everything to him. 

***

If only those days had lasted. 

***

_Present_

Bucky and Peter hadn’t talked much since that night with the pictures, but the air around them had changed. 

Things were, in a way, better. Still, Bucky didn’t want to stay - he couldn’t. Brooklyn was suffocating and memories he had tried so hard to push away found themselves at the forefront of his mind. 

But things were getting better. 

Peter didn’t hide in his room all day. Bucky didn’t watch him warily from across the room like he was a fragile little mouse or a lethal weapon. 

The four pictures rested on the mantle, welcomed into the space as if they had been there all along. Neither Bucky nor Peter mentioned their presence, but Bucky would catch Peter standing in front of them, staring pensively at each picture as if that would help him remember. 

Most nights, they’d sit and watch T.V. together (well, really, the T.V. was on but Peter watched Bucky who watched his hands as he picked his fingers bloody.) 

Some nights, Peter would make them dinner. Others, Bucky would. Turned out, they were both shit cooks. They would need to choke down whatever monstrosity the other made, but they still managed to exchange polite and quiet thank you’s when their plates were cleaned. 

On occasion, Bucky would ask Peter about his school day and Peter’s mouth would run like a faucet as he’d mention every little detail, even the most minuscule. Once he realized how long he’d been talking, his face would go beet red and he’d apologize. Bucky would give him something that might have tried to be a smile and tell him not to worry. 

But it was quiet. 

At least, until Bucky walked out of the bathroom one night and found Peter sitting cross-legged in the middle of the ceiling. 

Peter glanced over, furrowing his brow at Bucky as if he were the one upside-down. 

Realization poured over Peter’s face like the blood pooling to his head. 

“Sorry,” he squeaked, looking as meek as a mouse. “Sometimes I can’t tell what’s the floor and what’s not.” 

Bucky grunted, then held his arms up to guide Peter down before he could fall and break his neck. 

Peter flipped forward -- nearly giving Bucky a heart attack in the process -- and landed gracefully on two feet without any help. 

“What are they teaching you over at the tower if you can’t even tell which ways up?” Bucky snarked, holding his hands out stiffly. Not quite touching but not quite not. 

Peter rolled his eyes. “You don’t like them much, do you?” 

“What makes you say that?” 

Peter shrugged. “Mr. Stark might’ve mentioned something about it.”

“I’m sure he didn’t tell you that I had my reasons,” Bucky grumbled under his breath. Then, louder. “You never answered my question.” 

Peter rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “They’ve only taught me combat stuff, really. They don’t really get what it's like, so I can’t blame them for not teaching me anything else.” 

An idea crossed Bucky’s mind, like a flash of electricity. It was a terrible idea. A dumb one, too. He was surprised one like this would even come to him. He moved his tongue, pushing it from cheek to cheek before biting down hard enough to produce blood. 

It was a moronic, asinine, totally reckless idea, and yet --

Well, 

Who else was gonna teach the kid now that there was no one to protect him? 

Bucky exhaled and swallowed the blood pooling in his mouth. “Guess I’ll have to do it then.” 

Peter’s head snapped up, eyes wide and clear and hopeful. He had an apprehensive look on his face, however, like he was afraid Bucky would blow him off if he asked him to repeat it. 

“Really?” Peter asked, voice pitched in a sort of self-restrained excitement. 

Bucky tried to smile. What he gave instead was more of a grimace as he joked, “I always ended up with the short end of the stick.” 

***

“It’s three.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“In the _morning.”_

“Yeah?” 

“On a school _night_.” 

“Okay?” 

“This is…” Peter trailed off, spinning in a slow circle as he took in the calm, crisp air of a barren beachfront. His lips slowly moved up to a large grin. “ _Awesome!_ ’" 

For most kids, the vision of crashing, black waves flooding against pillars of dark sand in the middle of the night would make them quiver. But this kid was different, was born different, and that was enough of a passing thought for Bucky to rethink his strategy. 

It wasn’t like they had much of a choice. The apartment was too small and crowded for any sort of productive training to get done there. 

At this hour, the beach was spacious and empty. The cold, saltwater laced air was thick and grounding enough that Bucky had a good grip on his mind. And he could always swim off if things took a turn for the worst. 

He didn’t anticipate that. The beach brought him old memories, fond memories. Memories of sand between his toes and Steve’s lips on his neck and bubbling giggles and squealing children and the calm tide cradling his loved ones carefully, promising to never let them drown. 

“Mom never let me come to the beach.” 

Bucky blinked, suddenly brought back the present as he turned toward Peter. “Why not?” 

Peter shrugged. “I don’t think she understood it. She never saw the ocean until she came here so the idea of her kid and open waters kinda freaked her out, I think.” 

There was a pause like the kid was rethinking his statement, trying to figure out a way to redact it. 

“Not that she was freaked out much,” he insisted, face paling like he just let out an awful secret. 

“Yeah,” Bucky affirmed, raising an eyebrow. “I know.” 

“Oh, right! Yeah,” Peter chuckled stiffly. “You knew her.” 

Bucky glanced quickly to the sea. 

Then, he changed his course and clapped his hands loudly, startling Peter so bad he nearly jumped a foot in the air. 

“Alright,” Bucky said. “Let’s get started.” 

***

The first few nights, he made Peter run to the lifeguard tower that stood three miles away from them, He told him to pay attention to the sensation of the sand on his feet, making that his one focus. Then, he was to run up the side of the tower and focus on that sensation as well. How did it change? What did he feel? How quick was the change from soft sand to cold, hard plastic? 

Peter would run back, completely winded, and Bucky would make him do it again. 

Then, he made Peter do it with his eyes closed. Then, he blindfolded him. Then, Bucky started racing him. 

He started mixing in new things too, like push-ups and burpees and crunches and tumbling. 

Peter picked everything up flawlessly. He even smiled while doing it. All his movements were graceful, all of his steps were done with a purpose. 

Bucky almost commented on how similar Peter’s movements were to the widow, but he bit his tongue. 

Some nights, when Peter was too winded to do any more but he wasn’t quite ready to go home, they’d sit on the sandy shoreline and watch the tide. 

It was one of those nights, the two of them sitting side by side, keeping their breathing in time to the ebb and flow of the water (a meditation trick Bucky had picked up in that center all those years ago) when Peter asked, “Do you miss them?” 

Bucky breathed in quickly through his nose, messing up the rhythm he had built up. 

He debated lying. He debated playing dumb. He debated a lot of things, but in the end, he just confessed in a half-croaked whisper, “Every day.” 

Being back made it worse. Everything about Brooklyn -- the people, the buildings, the air -- made it impossible to forget. Memories ate away at him like larvae chewing through his brain. 

Peter was better than he could ever imagine. Well adjusted, kind, naive. 

It was why Bucky knew, in his heart of hearts, that he couldn’t stay here. It was only a matter of time before something happened again. 

He just needed a little bit more time. More time to train Peter, to make sure nothing, no one, could ever lay a hand on him. He needed to know that Peter could protect himself against anything. 

It was the least he could do for him, after the accident. 

Peter nodded, still looking out to that vast, dark ocean. “I think I do, too.” 

A stiff silence passed over them. Nothing could be heard but the dull roar of the ocean. 

Until Peter turned to Bucky. 

“So, I’ve been thinking about it,” Peter started, voice rushed like he wanted to get this idea out in one go. “About my mom. I know you said we have to wait until spring, but she, you know, she _really_ hates the cold. And I’m like, really strong, especially now that you’ve been training me. So I could, maybe, like start digging, and maybe with Thor’s or even your help, we could dig enough to bury her earlier. Like next week or even tomorrow, you know, if you want.” 

Bucky’s silent for a minute. When he began to worry that the kid might think he was actually considering it, he said, “Peter, I don’t think people in Brooklyn Cemetery would appreciate a couple of Avengers tearing up the ground around their graves too much.” 

“But,” Peter started as if he had a good argument to retort back with. 

“Sorry, kiddo,” Bucky muttered. “We’ll just have to wait until the spring.” 

Peter froze, eyes growing weary and shoulders sagging as he said one last time, “but she hates the cold.” 

Bucky took a deep breath then exhaled slowly through his nose. 

The boy was strong, and could probably win any fight he got caught in, but it was his heart that needed work. 

And Bucky had no idea how to strengthen it. For how could he teach someone to harden something that he himself had so broken and weak? 

“Come on,” Bucky sighed, patting Peter gently on the back. “Let’s go home.” 

***

_Thirteen or Fourteen years ago, depending on the day_

They moved into a cute brownstone in the north end of Brooklyn. Steve had insisted on it, going on and on about how they had always dreamed about raising a family in a house like this. 

Bucky almost refuted him, saying that neither of them had even _thought_ about raising a family before the war. But who was Bucky to argue with him? His memory wasn’t exactly the most reliable, with only bits and pieces from his youth flashing like strobe lights in the most inconvenient of times. 

In the end, he was happy about the move. More importantly, so were the kids. 

In the winter, they’d huddle around their fireplace with mugs of cider, sled down the snow piled on their front stairway, and bake sweets in the cramped kitchen. 

In the summer, they’d run around with the neighborhood kids (Pietro careful to mind his speed). Bucky would braid flowers into the girls’ hair and chase the boys around the house to make them take a bath. Steve read them bedtime stories and made sure they brushed their teeth. 

The year was packed full of birthdays, school registration, first steps, board games, Santa Clause, wiggly teeth, and grubby little hands. 

And Bucky loved every second of it. 

“Papa?” Pietro whispered one night, half-asleep and cuddled in Bucky’s lap. 

“Hm?” Bucky hummed, gently carding his fingers through the usually rambunctious boy’s hair. He was the hardest to put to sleep, always zooming around the house at the speed of light, his laughter and teasing calls were the only way Steve and Bucky could find him. 

Steve and Bucky had to repeat this routine every night. Holding the kid tight and using soft voices to tell him long and boring stories until he dozed off in their laps. 

Peter was the second hardest, but only because he was nineteen-months and refused to sleep unless he was with his fathers. Even then, he insisted on waking every three hours. Steve always laughed and said the fatigue kept him young, but Bucky noticed grey hairs growing at his temples. 

“I like it here,” Pietro said, voice hushed like he was telling a secret. 

“Me, too,” Bucky chuckled, lips quirking in amusement. 

Pietro sighed and snuggled closer. “I hope we get to stay.” 

The amusement left as quickly as a light flicking off and was immediately replaced with confusion. 

Bucky pursed his lips and looked down at the half-dozed three-(and a half)-year-old. 

“You don’t need to hope for that, Pietro. Of course, we’re staying.” 

“Okay,” Pietro yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Yelena is scared that we’ll go back. And Wanda is talking about Mama again.” 

“Yelena shouldn’t worry about silly things like that,” Bucky assured, making a mental note to discuss this with his oldest in the morning. 

He took a second to think about the second statement. Natasha was always a tricky subject. He didn’t want the children to not ask, but the only ones who really remembered her were the girls. Even then, Natasha made it pretty clear that she had no intention of coming back. 

Wanda talked about her a lot, telling made-up stories of how she used to braid her hair and sing her lullabies. Yelena would get very quiet and ask Wanda to stop talking. 

“Wanda just misses her, that’s all,” Bucky settled on eventually. “It’s okay for you all to miss her.” 

Pietro didn’t respond to that, and for a bit, Bucky thought that he had fallen asleep. 

Just as he was about to adjust himself to transfer Pietro from his arms to his bed, he heard a quiet, and nervous whisper of, “I don’t want to be taken, Papa.” 

“You won’t, baby,” Bucky promised immediately, like a reflex. “I’d never let anything happen to you. To any of you.” 

“You swear?” Pietro asked, lifting his head to look Bucky in the eyes. 

Bucky looked back, giving him a small smile as he said, “I swear.” 

***

_Present_

It was 4:45:34 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. 

Peter was doing homework at the kitchen table and Bucky was washing the dishes when Peter got a call from Pepper Potts telling him that he needed to bring his dad to the tower to talk about Natasha’s will. 

Apparently, she had been trying to contact Bucky for weeks. Bucky claimed he had no idea, and scoffed at her claim that he had been avoiding her call. 

He couldn’t exactly tell her that he felt he had no business reading Natasha’s will. It wasn’t like she left him anything, and it wasn’t like he would claim it if she did. 

But still, he huffed and dropped a half-washed pot back into the sink, making sudsy water splash up and soak the front part of his shirt before he told Peter to pack his homework to take with him. 

They rode the subway. It took them over two hours to get there. 

When they walked through the tower doors into the gleamy, futurist lobby, Bucky felt a pool of bile begin to worm it’s way up his throat. He didn’t know why exactly -- the tower didn’t hold _bad_ memories. Just unpleasant ones. Ones of wary children and hope-filled bellies when he was so old but still so young and naive. 

There was also the fear of running into Rogers. Bucky had been blessed so far with Steve’s absence, and he wasn’t about to stick around and wait for that luck to run out. 

When Bucky turned to Peter to demand him to wait there while he went to Pepper’s office, he caught the kid heading toward the elevator. 

“Where are you going?” Bucky questioned so harshly that Peter jumped when he turned around. 

“Uh,” Peter paused, eyes darting back in the direction he was heading. He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Mr. Stark said I could train while you were talking with Pepper.”

“When did he say that?” Bucky questioned again. A hot flame of protectiveness sparked in his stomach, and he wondered, vaguely, where it had gone all these years and why it had decided to come back now. 

Stark wasn’t an enemy, per se, but Bucky wasn’t exactly a fan of him. Just his name left this residual, bitter taste in his mouth, but it felt like that dislike was put there for him. Perhaps by a certain Steve Rogers all those years ago. 

Still, Bucky’s trust for him was about as far as he could throw him. (Actually, that was a terrible example, seeing as Bucky could probably throw him pretty far). 

“He texted me,” Peter shrugged like it was no big deal. “I just figured that you know, since we hadn’t been going to the beach...and I don’t really wanna get rusty…”

He trailed off and looked at Bucky hopefully. Did all nine yards too, with giving him his best puppy-dog eyes. 

Bucky shook his head and Peter’s shoulders sunk in defeat. 

“Just uh,” Bucky looked around the lobby. His eyes landed on a lush, dark blue couch. He nodded over to it and said, “Just sit there and do your homework. We aren’t staying long.”

Peter grumbled something unintelligible under his breath and dragged his feet to the couch. He plopped down and grumpily unzipped his bag to pull out his calculus textbook. 

Bucky rolled his eyes but gave no further comment as he turned on his heel and headed toward Pepper Pott’s office.

***

Bucky read the will again. Then again. Then one more time. 

He read the line: 

_In the event of my passing, I grant James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes full custody of our son, Peter Benjamin Barnes._

Bucky furrowed his brow and read it one more time. 

Pepper watched him steadily, her anticipation palpable. She leaned forward on her desk, hands linked beneath her chin. She didn’t appear nervous or excited. Just impatient. 

“I don’t understand,” Bucky finally spoke. 

Pepper blinked. “Which part?” 

“Well _I_ can’t be his guardian,” Bucky insisted, dropping the will back onto Pepper’s desk and curling away from it like it was arsenic. “This was supposed to be a temporary thing. A month tops.” 

“I --” Pepper sputtered, using a pencil to bring the will closer to her. 

“I mean, I can’t,” Bucky stated once again. He couldn’t quite figure out whether the idea disgusted or terrified him. 

“I was led to believe that Natasha had discussed this with you,” Pepper spoke slowly like she was afraid a wrong word would set Bucky off. 

“No,” Bucky scoffed. “We haven’t spoken in -- God, we didn’t speak since Peter was a baby. Not verbally, at least. I used to get letters from her but she said nothing about this.” 

Pepper nodded diplomatically. 

“In all honesty, Mr. Barnes, I was a little apprehensive of the decision myself, given --” she paused, seemingly flustered. Pepper was never one to seem flustered. She took a quick breath and reset herself, plastering that forced smile back on her face as she said, “It’s just that Peter seems to have grown very fond of you. He’s been texting Tony about it. He wants the two of you to meet, which is cute. I didn’t realize how little Nat told him about --” 

“He can’t live with me. I’m squatting in an apartment in Bucharest,” Bucky continued, growing so flustered that he didn’t realize he just gave away his location yet again. “I can’t raise a teenager there.”

“I…” Pepper leaned back, “think the idea was that you’d move here.” 

“ _Here_?” Bucky exclaimed. “I’m not staying here.” 

Maps of cities in faraway countries danced around in his head. He could move them to Turkey, or Italy, or even Mexica. He hadn’t spent much time in Latin America. 

Peter was smart. He could pick up a new language and adopt a new name. Bucky was surprised the kid had kept this one for so long. 

If Bucky had any say, Peter’s name would have changed the day after the accident, just in case Zemo had friends or family or, God, if someone from Hydra came around and found him…

It was dumb to keep that name. It was moronic to stay in Brooklyn. It was asinine that Natasha would leave the boy to him. 

“Natasha had this all carefully planned,” Pepper continued, highlighting key parts of the will. “She provided for Peter’s upkeep. Food, clothes, college tuition. She has a room here at the tower that --”

“Oh no,” Bucky declined, shaking his head. “No, we can’t stay here. I’m not staying in New York, there’s no way. Especially not here where --”

\-- _Steve’s heartbroken eyes would follow him around like a ghost._

Bucky shook his head once more. “No. I’m sorry -- thank you -- but no. This isn’t going to work.” 

“Why don’t you think about it? Talk it over with Peter. Give it a night,” Pepper pleaded, leaning forward like she wanted to put a reassuring hand on Bucky’s arm. She thought against it and suddenly leaned back in her chair. “We have tools here, Bucky. Therapists -- for you and Peter. What happened to you was awful, and I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I’d just hate to have Peter lose you too.” 

_He already lost me,_ was the retort that sat on the tip of Bucky’s tongue. He couldn’t be that father again. That father that would cook breakfasts, and use his thumb to wipe food from his kids’ cheeks, and go to baseball games, and PTA meetings, and --

Bucky nodded, not wanting this conversation to go on much longer. They’d just be talking in circles for hours. Bucky insisting that he couldn’t do this. Pepper insisting that he could. 

“Thank you,” Bucky mumbled, and pushed himself out of the room. 

The first thing he saw was Peter staring at him from the couch he left him on. 

“We’re leaving,” Bucky grumbled as he walked past Peter, knowing the boy would follow. 

He did after stuffing his homework back into his bag and slinging it over one shoulder. 

“Brooklyn?” Peter joked stiffly, trying to disguise his genuine question. 

Bucky stopped. He turned stealthily on the balls of his feet. Though it was quick, the movement didn’t seem to startle Peter. 

“How much did you hear?” Bucky asked. 

Peter looked away and rubbed the back of his neck. 

“All of it?” he admitted sheepishly. 

Bucky sighed through his nose. “Well, don’t worry too much. I know a man who can set us up with a place in Bosnia. Or maybe Guatemala. And we’ll be back for the funeral.”

“But -- I --” Peter sputtered, completely floored by Bucky’s casualness about the whole situation. 

Bucky turned around to keep walking to the exit, desperate to get out of this goddamn tower, but Peter rushed forward and blocked Bucky’s path. 

“I don’t _want_ to leave!” Peter insisted in the hardest tone Bucky had heard him use since coming here -- which, in all honesty, wasn’t saying much. 

“Why not?” Bucky questioned because the idea genuinely confused him. 

“I -- I have a girlfriend!” Peter argued. “And friends and school! I’m trying to get ready for college!” 

“Peter --”

“ _And_ I have this,” Peter emphasized, waving his hand around the building. “We’ve been talking about me becoming an _actual_ Avenger for months now. My mom was the one who suggested it. So you can’t just tell me that we’re moving just because you want to!” 

“I’m not talking about this anymore,” Bucky snapped. “Not here. We’ll discuss this your apartment.” 

He shouldered -- maybe too roughly -- past a floundering Peter. 

“That’s not --!” 

“Is there a problem here?” a chiding voice called out. 

Peter and Bucky jerked toward the noise and caught a very perturbed Stark marching toward them. 

He had an eyebrow raised like he was expecting their answer yesterday. He kept his gaze on Peter, obviously wanting the answer to come from him. 

“No,” Bucky grumbled at the same time Peter called, “Yes!” 

Stark stopped in front of them and crossed his arms. Just as he opened his mouth to say something smart, Bucky huffed and held up a hand. 

“ _No_ there isn’t,” Bucky emphasized through his teeth before sending a rather stern glare Peter’s way. 

Peter returned the glare with one of his own. It looked foreign on his face, and Bucky found himself wanting to laugh. 

Another strange sensation. 

He pushed it away by spitting a sarcastic, “Thank you.” to Stark and grabbing Peter’s bicep to pull him out of the tower. 

“Where are we going?” Peter snarked. “The airport or an orphanage?” 

“Shut,” Bucky exhaled, “ _up_.” 

  
  


***

_Thirteen years, one month, and 3 days ago_

“Stevie!” Bucky yelled from the kitchen, competing with the noise of four rambunctious kids in the dining room. “Can you put those papers down for three seconds? Your damn eggs are getting cold.” 

“Language!” Yelena called through a mouthful of toast, pointing an accusing finger at her father. “You have to put a nickel in the jar!” 

Pietro laughed, kicking his tiny legs dangling from his chair to keep from sprinting (there was a rule about that. No running during mealtimes). He shoveled oatmeal in his mouth until his cheeks puffed up like a chipmunk’s. 

Peter wiggled in his high chair, his own oatmeal covering his face and shirt as he yelled to be let down, only to be ignored by everyone in the room. 

Wanda giggled, waving her hand to get her sister’s attention before she started making the salt and pepper shakers float off the table. 

“Wanda Barnes, stop messing with those before they end up breaking,” Bucky scolded while darting around the kitchen to put their lunches together. He glanced over his shoulder to see if Steve had finally picked up his breakfast. When he saw that he hadn’t, Bucky groaned and snapped, “Steve!” 

“Yeah, Buck?” Steve asked, voice hollow and distracted as he read over those damn papers. He still managed to kick a leg out to catch Pietro’s chair when he accidentally tipped it backward. 

“Your eggs!” Bucky yelled again. 

Steve finally looked up then and winced when he saw the full plate that Bucky made him waiting on the counter.

“Sorry, Buck.” he apologized earnestly. “I just, these papers -- there’s something that’s really…” 

He trailed off and glanced at the kids -- his way of signaling that this was not a topic for their ears. 

But they were all gleefully ignorant to his worry as they made funny faces at each other over their empty plates. 

“Kids,” Bucky called, rapidly getting the three oldest’ attention. “Go get ready for school.” 

Without another word, the kids took off, racing up the stairs to see who could get ready the fastest. Neither Steve nor Bucky could ever figure out why they did it since Pietro always won. 

Bucky sighed, glancing at the mess he’d have to clean, before walking over to Peter and unclipping him from his high chair. 

“Come here, Petya,” he murmured as he lifted him up. 

He held him with one arm and used the other to grab a pack of wet wipes before sitting down next to Steve. 

“What’s going on?” he asked, voice soft as he placed a wiggling Peter on his knee and started wiping the oatmeal off his face. 

Peter fussed, turning his head in the opposite direction. Bucky just shushed him and started scrubbing his hands clean. 

Steve sighs, long and heavy, before asking, “You remember the Sokovia Accords that Tony wants us to sign?” 

“Yeah?” Bucky responded. 

That whole thing was hard to forget. Everything about it was a shit show, and without a doubt, the worst result in Avengers’ history. 

Damn near the whole country was toast. Millions of lives lost. Unimaginable damage spread across the land. 

Steve was torn up for months about it, holding the weight of it on his shoulders like it was all his fault. He didn’t talk about it much, not wanting to burden Bucky with his emotional load when he was already carrying so much. But there were nights where he just looked so exhausted, and he’d look at Bucky with old, red eyes and tell him that he couldn’t sleep. 

“I don’t know if I can sign it,” Steve admitted, rubbing his hand down his tired face. 

“Why not?” Bucky asked, still cleaning off Peter who had long given up on fighting, and leaned back limply as he begrudgingly allowed his father’s fussing. 

“Well, there’s --” Steve cut himself off, bringing his gaze to the toddler. He had this sort of pinched-pained look on his face like something was bugging him. “Buck, I don’t think Pete should be hearing this.” 

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky groaned but gave him an amused smile. “He’s two. How much do you remember from when you were two?” 

Steve scoffed. “Fine. smartass.” 

He looked at Peter, then licked his thumb to wipe a bit of oatmeal off Peter’s cheek that Bucky missed. Then he exhaled, long and shaky as if he were preparing for battle. 

“It’s just, there’s this guy -- says his name’s Zemo -- who’s been sending some weird, encrypted messages to us for months. With these horrible threats. From some of the things he writes, I think he lost someone in Sokovia,” Steve swallowed, this topic showing just how fresh the wound from Sokovia was. “I’m just afraid this man’s going to try something and we won’t be able to stop him until it’s too late.” 

Bucky waited, moving potential responses around in his mouth like marbles. 

“You think that this is a real threat?” 

“I wouldn’t be talking about it if I didn’t,” Steve responded, curt and tense. 

“Well, think it over a bit more. Talk to Sam. Or Stark. See what all your options are.” 

Steve nodded slowly, taking the advice in slowly like slurping jello. 

“You’re not worried?” Steve asked, tone careful. 

Bucky shrugged like he was just asked what he wanted for dinner and said, “Not really. You guys always come up with something. And besides,” 

He stood up, balancing Peter on his hip as he started toward the stairs to check on the kids. He looked back over his shoulder at Steve. 

“How much damage could this Zemo guy do?” 

***

_Peter - the son_

***

_Present_

Peter slammed the door of their apartment so hard that the walls looked like they were about to give out and crumble to the floor. 

Bucky didn’t amuse him by turning around. He silently stalked to the kitchen, probably with no other intention than to ignore Peter. 

“If you cared about me at all, you’d let us stay,” Peter claimed to Bucky’s tense back. “And you’d help me bury my mom.” 

“Don’t give me that,” Bucky growled back, an exhausted scolding as if he were already over the argument Peter was just starting. 

And Peter wasn’t going to back down that easily. 

Anger bubbled inside his stomach like indigestion. It burned through his core to his limbs and all the way to his fingertips. 

His eyes stung, which only made his anger grow when he realized he was about to start crying. 

He hated this. Weeping like he was a child because his emotions got tangled up together. 

Mom used to chide him when he got like this, cluck her tongue and tell him to stop being ridiculous. But there was always this look on her face, this foreign, calculating look like she was wondering how she raised her child to be so soft. 

“Why not?!” Peter yelled, tossing his arms in the air, completely exasperated. “What happened here that was so bad?” 

“ _Peter_ ,” Bucky snarled, face twisting up like he was in pain. “Enough.” 

Peter shook his head with his eyes fierce but tears spilled down his cheeks before he could stop them. 

“I just want to know,” he persisted, voice strong though he started to sniffle. “It’s not fair that no one tells me. Especially if you’re gonna make us move because of it.” 

Bucky looked like a caged animal about to be called to slaughter. His wild eyes darted around the kitchen, desperately looking for an escape. 

Peter was half-afraid he’d jump out the window when he said: 

“I can’t tell you, Peter. I just can’t,” his voice was stern but broken. “And I can’t stay in Brooklyn anymore. It’s _killing_ me.” 

And something about those words made a well inside Peter snap. His anger was quickly flooded by desperation. 

“I’ll be good,” he promised, voice wobbling and sounding like a much younger boy had spoken. “I won’t cause you any trouble. I won’t even be an Avenger. I won’t ever ask again. I’ll do all the groceries. I’ll make every meal. I’ll always clean the house. You’ll never have to leave the apartment again if you don’t want to. I just really want to stay, okay? I like things now, and I think they’re getting better, even.” 

Bucky turned away and looked at the kitchen cabinets so he wouldn’t have to see Peter’s tears when he said, “You can stay with someone else. Tony or Sam would take you.”

“I don’t _want_ to live with someone else!” Peter insisted, walking forward to close the gap between them. “I like living with you.” 

Bucky still refused to look at him as he huffed a bitter laugh like Peter just told the most disgusting joke.

“Why?” he spat, finally bringing his eyes to his son. 

And that --

Hurt. 

Peter took a step back, like a reflex. 

“Because…” he started. “I thought things were going well.” 

Bucky laughed again, that same twisted laugh, before he bit, “If you remember anything from before, then you would know that this isn’t _well_. This isn’t even close to well.”

“Maybe I don’t,” Peter met him half-way. “But --” 

He stopped. And breathed once out of his nose. A quick huff. 

“Look,” he started. “I love my mom. _Loved_ my mom, but there’s something about this. About you…”

Bucky’s eyes stubbornly darted away from him. But Peter pushed on. 

“I feel like I’m finally getting to know a part of myself that’s been kept away from me for so long. And maybe if we keep talking, I’d get to know more. I know this is hard, and I know something bad happened --”

“You don’t know _anything,”_ Bucky snarled, tongue like a whip as his wild and furiously terrified eyes shifted back to Peter. 

Peter froze, face shocked like a deer in headlights. Until suddenly, that shock morphed into something else. 

“Fine,” he conceded. 

Bucky’s face relaxed. He looked relieved until Peter continued. 

“Then I just need to know one thing.” 

Bucky looked at him, face filled with panicked apprehension. “What?” 

“Do you even love me?” 

Bucky squeezed his eyes and lifted his right hand toward Peter as if he were begging him to stop. 

“Peter --”

“I’m asking for an honest answer,” Peter begged. “That’s all I want, you know? I’ll never ask you for anything else. I just need to know that you loved me.” 

Bucky still wasn’t looking at him, and the pinched pained look on his face told Peter all he needed to know. 

“Peter, _stop,_ ” Bucky begged as if he were being tortured. 

But Peter couldn’t. His words kept spilling out like an open faucet. 

“My mom told me that you did, at some point, and I know that she wasn’t lying, but right now,” Peter pointed at the floor, “ _here_ . I need to know, do you love me like you did before everything happened? Or do you love me at all? Because that’s all I need from you, Bucky. If you won’t tell me about what happened, at least tell me this. _Please_.” 

“I can’t --” Bucky froze, words choked up like a car sludging through ice. He shook his head so fast his hair completely shielded his face. His scared, wild eyes were still so clear through it all. “I don’t --” 

A feeling of defeat washed over Peter. Cold and bitter. His heart went limp in his chest, like rain-soaked clothes sticking to his skin, leaving him twitchy and chilled. 

“Oh my God,” was all he could say in response, and it felt like it was punched out of him. The words were numb, but he couldn’t hide his heartbreak pooling in his eyes. He pivoted on shaky legs and rushed to his room before he could fall. 

“Peter,” Bucky called but made no move to stop him. 

Peter slammed his door closed, shaking the walls and causing various plaques and a picture of him and MJ to fall to the floor. 

He cupped his hand over his mouth to keep his sobs inside. His back pressed against the door and as he slid down, falling to the ground in a rough _thump_ as he wondered what the hell he did to deserve a life like this? 

***

_the soldat_

***

_Thirteen years and seventeen days ago_

_The accident_

When the man knocked on the door and introduced himself as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent here on behalf of Steve Rogers to examine the house for bugs or bombs, Bucky should’ve looked closer at his I.D. 

He would’ve noticed that it was fake. And he would’ve asked where this agent was from, how he had that accent, just to distract this faux agent long enough to send a message to Steve.

But the kids were rowdy that day. And Bucky was in the middle of cleaning up a broken pot that Pietro knocked over and trying to keep Wanda from lifting Peter with her mind. 

If Bucky hadn’t been so busy trying to manage the kids, he would’ve seen that thin, red book tucked under that man’s arm. 

Bucky wouldn’t have made the biggest mistake of his life. 

He wouldn’t have turned around. 

Because as soon as he did, he felt a sharp burn in his back, a thousand volts of electricity bursting through him from a taser. 

He fell to his knees as his body tensed and convulsed. He opened his mouth to scream for the kids to run, but he suddenly felt like he was underwater. Drowning. Words garbled in his mouth like blood just as the man whispered the first word. 

_“Желание”_

***

When he came to, Peter was screaming. 

Bucky blinked. 

He saw the blood first. On the wall. On the carpet. On Peter. 

“Petya?” he gasped, dropping to his knees and extending his arms to the boy so he could pull him close and asked what happened. 

But Peter scurried away from him, cowering toward the wall and screaming louder. 

His eyes were wide, his face pale. 

Bucky froze and felt his knees grow wet with hot liquid. 

His heartbeat rushed fire through his body. His fingers grew numb. His face felt hot, like being licked by the fresh flames from an explosion. 

He knew this feeling. This lost feeling, where hunks of time disappeared and he could never account for them. Until he’d see the aftermath. 

His heart raced with _ohmygodnopleasegodnodon’ttellmesomethinghappenedtomybabies_

Peter kept screaming. 

Bucky glanced down. 

To his right, was the bloody, stiff corpse of --

***

**_“What did you do?!”_ **Steve’s scream would forever live in his mind. 

***

Red and blue flashed through their cute brownstone in the north end of Brooklyn. 

Adults in police uniforms and others in black suits flooded through the front door. 

Paramedics rushed in. One ran out carrying a trauma shocked pale Peter who had long stopped crying. 

More came in. 

They left with body bags. 

Three of them. 

Small. 

“It was an accident,” Bucky whispered, voice hollow as he watched his babies get carried out of the house. 

Their cold little bodies zipped up in black bags. 

“We know,” the S.H.I.E.L.D agent assured. He turned to Steve, who was crying and hunched over a bucket filled with vomit. “His face came up on the software, sir. We can confirm that it was Zemo.” 

Steve might have responded. He might have vomited again. Their voices sounded far off and underwater. 

Bucky watched the last paramedic leave. He didn’t know which child they were holding. All he knew was that they were dead. 

“This wasn’t meant for them,” Bucky insisted. But no one was listening. 

***

He was taken to headquarters. S.H.I.E.L.D. questioned him. They got in contact with Natasha -- or really, she got in contact with them. 

Bucky wondered, years later, how long she had been keeping an eye on that family. She told him once in a letter that she wished she had been watching closer that day. That she would’ve stopped Zemo if she had only been watching. 

But she wasn’t. And she didn’t. 

And their children were then in their graves. 

S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t question him for long. They ruled it as an accident. That it was Zemo or Hydra or those damn words that were to blame. Not Bucky. 

They probably assumed that this would be a relief. That Bucky would thank them, take hold of his last surviving child, and go back home with Steve. 

He didn’t. 

As soon as he left the questioning room, he grabbed a gun from a guard’s holster and put it inside of his mouth, but five men and Steve all grabbed him before he could pull the trigger. 

He screamed at them. Sobbed. Told them to let him do it. But they wouldn’t even grant him that small mercy of killing himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *im so sorry* 
> 
> Talk or yell at me over on [tumblr](https://justanotherblonde-writer.tumblr.com)


End file.
